Chapter 7

Taking Your Text Up a Notch with Web Typography

IN THIS CHAPTER

Bullet Choosing and applying fonts

Bullet The three properties that can make you a typography star

Bullet Making your page text look amazing

Bullet Styling links

Bullet Aligning your text just so

90 percent of design is typography.

—JEFFREY ZELDMAN

The next time you come across a web page that you find visually appealing, ask yourself where that appeal comes from. Does it come from the images used? Maybe, but most sites use generic images, so it’s likely not that. Is it the colors? Sure, colors play a big part in making a page look good, but the vast majority of web pages either don’t bother with color or use it poorly.

No, my guess is that most of the appeal comes from something you may barely notice: the page’s typography, which means the way the page uses fonts, spacing, and alignment. The best typography invites you into the page while at the same time not drawing attention to itself. When a page has great typography, it creates a kind of ...

Get HTML, CSS, & JavaScript All-in-One For Dummies now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.