Live data from Hacker News

Web Design is 95% Typography

informationarchitects.net

31–40 of 87 posts

Re: Web Design is 95% Typography

#31
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?

I also frequently experience this glitch, default zoom level is 100%.

Re: Web Design is 95% Typography

#32
> 95% of the information on the web is written language.

Really? Youtube videos, Facebook photos, TV shows, movies, music, etc only 5%?

To be expected from a company that sells a text editor that's 95% typography.

Re: Web Design is 95% Typography

#33
post #18

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 UX…

I think this speaks (good) volumes about you and your approach - without all the details you take the initiative.

As someone currently using 99designs (booo!hiss!) to get a website relaunch off the ground. There are one or two designers who have actually, well, read the brief, who engage and listen to feedback intelligently. I will want to work with them again in different areas, and am happy to see they have got some portfolio beginning.

Its the difference between asking permission and asking forgiveness.

Re: Web Design is 95% Typography

#34

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…

That's absolutely true, but hand on heart, how many Web Designers/Developers here really have a say on when they receive content? The chance to build a design around the content would be a fine thing for many of us.

Re: Web Design is 95% Typography

#35
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?

No, this was with the default and it persists even after zooming back and forth.

Re: Web Design is 95% Typography

#36
Yes, and it will radically change as the web stops being English / Latin alphabet dominated.

Typography for Japanese characters is fascinating - three different languages almost, sitting in the same sentence, the cadence of language reflecting in the angles or spacing, the possibilities are an order of magnitude more complex than English - and an order of magnitude more rewarding.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/esthet/3454734/ - beauty in calligraphy

http://www.kfstudio.net/himaji/ - cute fontface for Kanji

http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?111 - a good primer

Re: Web Design is 95% Typography

#37

> 95% of the information on the web is written language. Really? Youtube videos, Facebook photos, TV shows, movies, music, etc only 5%? To be expected from a company that sells a text editor that's 95% typography.

Pretty sure the article was written before they started working on iA Writer.

Re: Web Design is 95% Typography

#38

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…

Very true, I've seen plenty of people waste hours debating how to tweak layout in fairly minor ways to increase conversions when in fact their entire content either doesn't make sense, is incomplete or is just plain boring.

Re: Web Design is 95% Typography

#40
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...

I was always disappointed that TeX or LaTeX didn't become standard for the web over HTML.
Post reply on HN