Web Design For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

Chapter 8. Letter-Perfect Type Design

In This Chapter

• Choosing readable fonts for the Web

• Understanding the difference between HTML and graphic text

• Creating a simple graphical text headline

• Using HTML to control font display

• Working with internal and external CSS style sheets

Perhaps more than any other detail, your font choices say a lot about the level of your graphic design skills. People who don't have any design training seem to gravitate toward the fun, frilly fonts and — like a kid in a candy store — try out every font on their system. You have to be careful with fonts, however, because they have a powerful effect on the look and feel of your Web site. Of all the graphic elements that go into a Web site, the fonts can make the biggest impression. Fonts have the uncanny ability to make people start listing off adjectives to describe your site like "cheerful" or "serious" or worse, "amateur."

In Web design, you work with two different kinds of text:

• HTML-generated text, which comprises nearly 90 percent of all text in your Web site, and as such, is the one you work with most often

• Graphic text, which is actually an image you create in a graphics program such as Fireworks or Photoshop

In this chapter, I discuss basic typography design rules and techniques for creating great-looking HTML and graphic text for the Web. In addition, I discuss text readability issues, what fonts to choose for ...