A practical checklist for web typography
We end up explaining this on discovery calls often enough that it deserved writing down. Run through this the next time web typography comes up.
Consistency is the quiet half of design work: it rarely gets complimented, and its absence is noticed immediately. It rarely shows up as a line item, which is exactly why it slips.
The checklist
- Body text below 16px is a readability problem, not a style choice
- Line length between 50 and 75 characters is easiest to read
- Two typefaces is plenty for almost any site
- Someone is named as the owner
- There is a date to review it again
What it costs to ignore
Body text below 16px is a readability problem, not a style choice. In practice this is a scheduling problem more than a technical one. It is the sort of thing that looks like polish right up until it costs you an enquiry.
What this looks like day to day
The measurable part of design is whether people can find what they came for and act on it without hesitating. Three things worth confirming about web typography before you move on:
- Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
- Two typefaces is plenty for almost any site — and you know whether that is true here
- There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped
If you are not sure where your systems currently stand on this, it takes us about an hour to find out.