Web Typography

When you visit a website what is the most important thing?  Normally it is the content and many times, text is an important part of the content.  The typography on a site communicates the tone an impact of the content.  Web typography is the art of arrangement, style, appearance, and printing of type.  Web typography has come along way since the web's inception when we were limited to a handful of fonts which could be used.

Understanding the basics

Web typography is anything but easy.  There is a lot more that goes into it other than choosing a font.  The image below, originally found here, shows various typographic definitions.

Confusing isn't it?  As you can imagine, it can be quite frustrating to keep up with all of that.

And that's not all!

There is also, typographic scale, CSS, vertical rhythm, browser design, the list goes on and on!  Web typography is important to remember when designing a site and not every one will have a natural ability for it.  It can be easy to just focus on the content of the site and over look the text itself but you need to make sure you pay some much needed attention to the text itself.
I would by no means consider myself to be an expert in web typography.  However, I can recognize its importance.  How a website looks on a first impression can make or break your site.  Whether you realize it or not typography can have a significant impact on the look and feel of the site.  Being that I work in web development I understand what it means for a site to "feel good" to the users but I'm not always good at making it that way and I will be the first to admit it, I many times will overlook the typography in sites I design.

There's always room for improvement

There is always something you can learn when it comes to web design.  My advice is to make sure you know when to ask for help and don't be ashamed to ask for help.  We all have our strengths and weakness and we should lean on each other and make the Internet a better place for us all.  Below I have listed some resources I have found to be useful on web typography.  Please feel free to make your own additions to my list.

Typography for the Web
6 Ways to Improve Your Web Typography
The Elements of Typographical Style Applied to the Web
50 Useful Design Tools for Beautiful Web Typography
10 Web Typography Rules Every Designer Should Know