Type Effects in Web Design: It’s All About Moderation

Type effects - can make or break the typography on your site

Some type effects are so common that you may not even notice them in design. Bolding and italics, for example, have dedicated keyboard shortcuts in most all editing software. Many font families also include many variations of the same typeface with multiple widths and slant options. So what do you choose? Where do you draw the line when it comes to good versus poor typography? Simply, keep it simple. Limit yourself to two or three typefaces on your site. Then limit yourself some more and try to avoid using more than three additional type variances. The toughest decision you will be left with is which effect(s) to use.

 

Bold and italics are the most common type modifications. Even with fonts where the family does not include bold or italic options, most computer software allows for bolding and italics. These options are also built into the framework of HTML with “strong” or “b” for bolding and “em” or “i” for italics. Note that strong and em (emphasized) tags don’t exactly mean bold and italics; most browsers just render them that way. If your font family includes bold or italic variations, you may like the look of these options better than the default computer or HTML settings. These variations sometimes have small detailed changes that only register when making a “font change”.

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