Chapter 1. Web Typography

Hello! Wonder no more about typography, it's fascinating mysteries, sensual shapes, and everything else you wanted to know about it; this book is about to reveal everything on the subject for you! Typography forms the base of a good written communication—it's an art form in itself, the art of drawing with words. While speaking you set the mood with tone and gesture, with writing nothing is more important than the words themselves and how they are portrayed.

Every letter, every curve, and every shape in the written form conveys feelings; so it's important to learn everything about it if you want to be a better designer.

You also need to know how readable your text is, therefore you have to set it up following some natural constraints our eyes and minds have built in, how white space influences your message, how every form should be taken into consideration in the writing of a text and this book will tell you exactly that!

Plus a little more!

You will also learn how to approach all of the above in today number one medium, the World Wide Web. Since 95 percent of the Web is made of typography, according to Oliver Reichenstein, it's only logical that if you want to approach the Web you surely need to understand it better.

Through this first chapter, you'll learn all the basics of typography and will be introduced to it core features, such as:

• Anatomy
• Line height
• Families
• Kerning

Note that typography, the art of drawing with words, is really ancient, as much as 3200 years prior to the appearance of Christ and the very first book on this matter is the splendid Manuale Tipografico from Giambattista Bodoni, which he self-published in 1818. Taking into consideration all the old data, and the new knowledge, everything started from back then and every rule that has been born in print is still valid today, even for the different medium that the Web is.