Metadata
talk

A Five-Minute Guide to Better Typography

Pierrick Calvez

Source

talks


note this is taken entirely from the slides found at the source, I didn't attend the talk, but still found some useful information worth keeping

Type is a beautiful group of letters, not a group of beautiful letters

Core Ideas

  • Think in blocks and hierarchies of elements, use consistent rules for individual blocks, rather than trying to layout the typography of the page as a whole
  • Typography is not a science, do things to your eye
  • Start with a single typeface that has at least four weights
  • use contrast
  • skip a weight to deliniate different types of text (headers, subheaders, and paragraphs)
  • in doubt, for each type of text, double the size (ex, if paragraph is 25pt, make subheading 50pt and heading 100pt)
  • strike a good balance with spacing (Calves advises spacing should be 1.2x-1.5x the font size)
  • use between 40 and 70 characters per line
  • align left
  • don't let font go below 14px