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Web Design is 95% Typography

informationarchitects.net

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Re: Web Design is 95% Typography

#11

Post by ZoFreX »

sp8 wrote: post #9
digitalengineer wrote: post #2

Web design is 95% typography and 100% content. I can't tell you how many times we have to design without knowing the actual CONTENT or text and we're forced to dropping Lorum Ipsum (fake text) in the designs. Not knowing the text stops us from knowing the USER, the target audience, and the entire REASON for the website. Actually knowing the subject, content and text makes the difference between 'nice' and 'functional…

I thoroughly agree. Its astonishing the number of times I've had projects stumble, sometimes collapse, at the "writing the content" stage. And only ONCE have I had someone hand me (nearly) complete copy before I started designing.

Once in complete exasperation at the total absense of copy from a client I offered to write it for them for a modest extra fee, and then rang their phone number (one of the few pieces of text I did have) and interviewed one of their call center staff to get the down low on the business.

Re: Web Design is 95% Typography

#12

Post by duiker101 »

hiphopopotamus wrote: post #8

Web design is not 95% typography...

I'd say it depends on the website. If it only needs to present written content it CAN (not must) be. But other way I agree with you, typography is not really "functional", and a website needs to be functional. Most of the websites do.

Re: Web Design is 95% Typography

#14

Post by aw3c2 »

That website is impossible to get a quick overview on for me. Those centered lines looked like "thoughts" at first but it seems they are subheadlines? The whitespace feels all weird to me. The text is very huge and uncomfortable. The content itself is badly written (and to me, liking reading something is important. Surely the author's name is "Oliver Reichenstein" not "oliver reichenstein" as the font looks like. Rant over.

Re: Web Design is 95% Typography

#15

Post by yogsototh »

Adrock wrote: post #7

Comically, here's how this is rendering for me using Chromium on Ubuntu: https://s3.amazonaws.com/1overBlog/screenshots/treat-text-as...

Also, no ligature :/

I have ligature on my website by using:

    text-rendering: optimizelegibility
with Computer Modern.

For many technical reason, typography on the web is hard. I had written my though about it here (there are images, this is why I simply don't copy/paste):

http://yannesposito.com/Scratch/en/blog/Typography-and-the-W...

Re: Web Design is 95% Typography

#16

Post by yesbabyyes »

Adrock wrote: post #7

Comically, here's how this is rendering for me using Chromium on Ubuntu: https://s3.amazonaws.com/1overBlog/screenshots/treat-text-as...

I get this quite often (Chromium/Ubuntu here, too). It usually fixes itself by zooming out/zooming in. I always surf with 120% zoom, and I've kind of assumed the bug is related to that. Do you surf with a non-default zoom level?

Re: Web Design is 95% Typography

#17

Post by kyriakos »

digitalengineer wrote: post #2

Web design is 95% typography and 100% content. I can't tell you how many times we have to design without knowing the actual CONTENT or text and we're forced to dropping Lorum Ipsum (fake text) in the designs. Not knowing the text stops us from knowing the USER, the target audience, and the entire REASON for the website. Actually knowing the subject, content and text makes the difference between 'nice' and 'functional…

in my 10 year experience working as a developer at web design companies the prettiest the layout the designer came up with the less functional it is in practice.

...and lets not get started on what happens once the end users start adding content... I feel like crying!

Re: Web Design is 95% Typography

#18

Post by GBKS »

digitalengineer wrote: post #2

Web design is 95% typography and 100% content. I can't tell you how many times we have to design without knowing the actual CONTENT or text and we're forced to dropping Lorum Ipsum (fake text) in the designs. Not knowing the text stops us from knowing the USER, the target audience, and the entire REASON for the website. Actually knowing the subject, content and text makes the difference between 'nice' and 'functional…

Honestly though, I think we need to take more responsibility in helping shape that copy. I've also had pretty bad experiences when the client had a dedicated writer assigned. My favorite approach is to, whenever copy is missing, go to a competitors site or Wikipedia, and copy/paste. At least you get an approximation, and it helps everybody who looks at the project start responding to and thinking about content. As UXers/designers/developers we might actually have a very good feel for content and are in a great position to get the process started.

An interface with Lorem Ipsum is like a portrait of a person without pupils drawn. It becomes abstract and all live is missing.

Re: Web Design is 95% Typography

#19

Post by rickdale »

I am no web designer, but I have made plenty of websites in my time. Right now I am rebuilding a site for a product that I sell. I decided to go with a one page web site with lots of javascript for clicking around and animated images. The words on my page that are typed out are: Available At, Contact Us, and F.A.Q. . . . the other content is my logo etc. While I do see that good typography can equate to good web design, I will also add that good images, code, colors, and usefulness also help.
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