Web typography culture
Web designers have always had a difficult relationship with typography.
On the one hand, most web designers are not trained as a “typographer”, unlike traditional graphic designers. On the other hand, there was simply no typography in the web.
The main problem: the lack of history.
Let's face it. Regarding the vast history of typography in typography, the history of typography on the web is negligible. We are like a teenager who has just received a driver's license: great power and responsibility and lack of experience.
Since web-typography has not yet been fully formed, there are two ways of development:
1) Try to recreate classic typography on screen
2) Or go completely new, unknown way.
The problem with the first option is that typography cannot be fully transferred to the web. The second option is similar to shooting with eyes closed: something hits the target, but most of the bullets will go past.
')
Rule number 1: The search for the guilty.
Let's look at the first real problem: blaming something or someone. If I were given a dollar every time I heard a web designer complaining that different browsers display fonts differently or that someone changing the content changes its location or that the client refused to do what the designer advises him, I would be a millionaire.
This is what I call professional risk. Every web designer knows about them and faces these problems every day. This will continue until the typography web-standard appears (which, it seems to me, will not appear soon). I'm not trying to say that this is irrelevant, but all our efforts are ruined by a random worker who copies texts for $ 8 an hour or the notorious IE6.
A serious web typographer works beyond these problems. The layout can be tested in all popular browsers; The text on the page is arranged with a "foolproof"; customers can <zach> send </ zac> to gently explain the problem.
Rule number 2: Typography - this is your task.
Returning back to the printing presses, engravings and a manual set of layouts you can clearly determine the person responsible for printing. Usually it was the guy whose hands were elbowed in black paint and he was the only one who knew how the printing press worked. Most often it was the only person in the city who could read at all. And so you implicitly believed him when he explained how to print your publication.
Clients brought content, typesetters posted text. Everyone was satisfied.
Currently, there are many "knowledgeable", because everyone has access to Microsoft Word and the keyboard. Designers have to wade through the ocean of unknowing typographers already at the design stage.
Do not get me wrong, you need to listen to the opinion of the client, but decisions must be made in accordance with the experience of the printer. This is the work of the designer. If you slide through the project, only waiting for the client to choose the font and the length of the line, it is better to quit. By working this way, you become a tool by which the client moves the mouse.
Be a designer and take responsibility for it. Typography is your job.
Rule number 3: Text is part of the user interface.
When you think of the user interface, what do you think? Scrolling the menu in iPod Classic? The dashboard of your car? All of this may have been examples of user interfaces, but I would like you to look at it from a web design point of view. Consider briefly the trends of interfaces over the past decade:
Consider several brands that have existed all this time and are not going to die yet.
Do any of them claim to be a “great user interface”? Probably not. But everyone has a very good (and we like it or not, comfortable) design. So why web designers from all create sites that these examples have nothing in common?
IMHO, all this is due to the fact that our industry is not yet developed, we all hope to find a “new style” and try to avoid boring, but functional projects. We do not even allow the thought that something developed in 2005 can still be used. We are of the opinion that the more complex the solution to the project and the more vividly the texture of the background, the more convenient it is for the end user.
It is obvious that a simple text, without all these effects of bubbles, glow and glare, is already perfect and ready to use.
Why? Because text is part of the user interface! Before you select the gradient fill tool, think about it - the text is the user interface. You can not make a convenient site without text. Web users will adapt to any style and design, but the basic elements (text + navigation) should be comfortable and work.
Rule # 4: Take CSS seriously
The last thing I wanted to point out this time is the web typing tool: CSS. With well-written CSS, your entire site will look logical, the display in all browsers will be the same, the content manager’s nerves will remain intact.
If you consider yourself a web-designer, but can only make up layouts in Photoshop, then you are a web-designer only half. Typography in the web is always displayed on the screen with a code.
On the one hand, most web designers are not trained as a “typographer”, unlike traditional graphic designers. On the other hand, there was simply no typography in the web.
The main problem: the lack of history.
Let's face it. Regarding the vast history of typography in typography, the history of typography on the web is negligible. We are like a teenager who has just received a driver's license: great power and responsibility and lack of experience.
Since web-typography has not yet been fully formed, there are two ways of development:
1) Try to recreate classic typography on screen
2) Or go completely new, unknown way.
The problem with the first option is that typography cannot be fully transferred to the web. The second option is similar to shooting with eyes closed: something hits the target, but most of the bullets will go past.
')
Rule number 1: The search for the guilty.
Let's look at the first real problem: blaming something or someone. If I were given a dollar every time I heard a web designer complaining that different browsers display fonts differently or that someone changing the content changes its location or that the client refused to do what the designer advises him, I would be a millionaire.
This is what I call professional risk. Every web designer knows about them and faces these problems every day. This will continue until the typography web-standard appears (which, it seems to me, will not appear soon). I'm not trying to say that this is irrelevant, but all our efforts are ruined by a random worker who copies texts for $ 8 an hour or the notorious IE6.
A serious web typographer works beyond these problems. The layout can be tested in all popular browsers; The text on the page is arranged with a "foolproof"; customers can <zach> send </ zac> to gently explain the problem.
Rule number 2: Typography - this is your task.
Returning back to the printing presses, engravings and a manual set of layouts you can clearly determine the person responsible for printing. Usually it was the guy whose hands were elbowed in black paint and he was the only one who knew how the printing press worked. Most often it was the only person in the city who could read at all. And so you implicitly believed him when he explained how to print your publication.
Clients brought content, typesetters posted text. Everyone was satisfied.
Currently, there are many "knowledgeable", because everyone has access to Microsoft Word and the keyboard. Designers have to wade through the ocean of unknowing typographers already at the design stage.
Do not get me wrong, you need to listen to the opinion of the client, but decisions must be made in accordance with the experience of the printer. This is the work of the designer. If you slide through the project, only waiting for the client to choose the font and the length of the line, it is better to quit. By working this way, you become a tool by which the client moves the mouse.
Be a designer and take responsibility for it. Typography is your job.
Rule number 3: Text is part of the user interface.
When you think of the user interface, what do you think? Scrolling the menu in iPod Classic? The dashboard of your car? All of this may have been examples of user interfaces, but I would like you to look at it from a web design point of view. Consider briefly the trends of interfaces over the past decade:
- In the early 2000s, web designers thought that a good user interface meant a lot of brushed metal, pseudo-photo-realistic buttons and glowing envelopes.
- In the mid-2000s, web designers thought that a good user interface required the use of glossy buttons, bright colors and sparkling graphics.
- In the late 2000s, web designers thought it was the use of embossed textures, a “desktop” or notepad, and bold fonts.
- Now we are obsessed with the “noisy” background and white shadows from the texts.
Consider several brands that have existed all this time and are not going to die yet.
Do any of them claim to be a “great user interface”? Probably not. But everyone has a very good (and we like it or not, comfortable) design. So why web designers from all create sites that these examples have nothing in common?
IMHO, all this is due to the fact that our industry is not yet developed, we all hope to find a “new style” and try to avoid boring, but functional projects. We do not even allow the thought that something developed in 2005 can still be used. We are of the opinion that the more complex the solution to the project and the more vividly the texture of the background, the more convenient it is for the end user.
It is obvious that a simple text, without all these effects of bubbles, glow and glare, is already perfect and ready to use.
Why? Because text is part of the user interface! Before you select the gradient fill tool, think about it - the text is the user interface. You can not make a convenient site without text. Web users will adapt to any style and design, but the basic elements (text + navigation) should be comfortable and work.
Rule # 4: Take CSS seriously
The last thing I wanted to point out this time is the web typing tool: CSS. With well-written CSS, your entire site will look logical, the display in all browsers will be the same, the content manager’s nerves will remain intact.
If you consider yourself a web-designer, but can only make up layouts in Photoshop, then you are a web-designer only half. Typography in the web is always displayed on the screen with a code.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/118051/
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