Web typography: the questions we get asked most

The advice here is unglamorous, which is probably why it gets skipped. The questions about web typography that come up most often on our calls.

Consistency is the quiet half of design work: it rarely gets complimented, and its absence is noticed immediately. It is worth deciding this deliberately rather than inheriting whatever the last person set up.

Do we need to care about this?

Body text below 16px is a readability problem, not a style choice. The teams that handle this well are rarely the ones with the biggest budgets. Assume whoever inherits this will have half your context and none of your patience.

Can it wait until after launch?

Occasionally. More often the post-launch version costs several times the pre-launch one. The reasoning matters more than the rule, because the rule has exceptions.

How do we know it is working?

Two typefaces is plenty for almost any site. That sounds obvious written down. It is still the thing most often skipped. Write the reasoning down alongside the decision, because the reasoning is what changes first.

How to tell if yours is fine

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
• Body text below 16px is a readability problem, not a style choice — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

If any of that sounds like a description of your current setup, it is fixable.