Appreciating web design; setting type
We have what we think is a special issue of A List Apart for people who make websites.
- Every responsible web designer has theories about how best to serve type on the web. In How to Size Text in CSS, Richard Rutter puts the theories to the test, conducting experiments to determine the best of all best practices for setting type on the web. Richard’s recommendation lets designers reliably control text size and the vertical grid, while leaving readers free to resize text.
- And in Understanding Web Design, I explain why cultural and business leaders mistake web design for something it’s not; show how these misunderstandings retard critical discourse and prevent projects from reaching their greatest potential; and provide a framework for better design through clearer understanding.
Plus, from October 2001, we resurrect Typography Matters by Erin Kissane, the magazine’s editor, who is currently on sabbatical.
Tags: webdesign, css, textsize, type, typography, sizingtype, sizingtext, understanding, typedesign, architecture, newspaperdesign, posterdesign, bobdylanposter, erinkissane, richardrutter, zeldman, jeffreyzeldman, alistapart
Filed under: Accessibility, Design, Publishing, Standards, client services, creativity, development
Thank you for writing that piece. I’ve been feeling a long-building frustration with the there-are-no-great-lasting-works-of-Design-in-Web-Design set for some time now. Your article is a well-considered, forceful response to the fallacies underlying that attitude.
That was a fantastic article, Jeffrey. I even printed it.
Awesome work, I appreciate the great article and loved Richard’s article about using fonts.
Excellent article. Well thought out, great points, never a dull moment while reading it. Lets hope this helps define our industry a little more.
If only there was a way to kern…
Great piece, Jeffrey, and thank you for it. Relative to the recent discussion of landmark web designs, etc., this article is likely the response that thousands had in mind but only you could express (and that’s meant as no disrespect to the other voices).
But it’s more than that – it’s a well-considered look at what it is we do, backed up by years of experience – delivered at exactly the right time.
It feels sort of like your focus is shifting some from web standards to helping people inside and outside the web design community get a grip on just what the hell it is we’re doing. I think that’s a good thing, as it could be a significant step toward realizing the potential of the web to make life better for more people, rather than just a superfancy way to waste time and electricity.
I don’t know. Whatever your intent was I think you wrote a landmark article. Thanks for taking the time to do it.
It’s amazing nobody has cited Donald Knuth’s epic work on “TeX” from years ago; he basically created digital typesetting. It’s all about glue and boxes. :)
Everything that I have read of late that pertains to Internet communication points me to one thing: standalone RIAs.
Well put Jeffrey. Just getting started in the business of this in a small market. This article will come in handy. We are surveying the landscape and attempting to apply this line of thought to secondary market middle America. Education is different here though. No matter
what they seem to read they have a serialized idea of what should happen. I postulate that if web design was influenced by middle America it would look all together different. However, we push on, hoping to to break or understand the serialization that is middle America. For here it is a flat world.
Richard Rutter hits another bullseye with his Sizing Text article. I don’t think enough people are aware of just how much–and just how important–his contributions to web typography are. The man deserves a medal; in fact I’m going to start writing a piece on him. Let’s hope he becomes an ALA regular.
Hear, hear! On both counts. Richard is brilliant and his contributions are under-appreciated.
Zeldman, I am a brazilian design student and want to reproduce a excerpt of your amazing article called “Understanding Web Design” (A List Apart) in our blog. The intention is spread the content and translate it, specially to brazilian (or latin) designers who don´t speak english.
Our blog is the result of a group colleagues who have common interests and the intention to discuss the design and if possible improve it to can we. Written our own articles, based on our experience and daily life as professional designers.
Regards from Brazil.
Camilo Oliveira
@Camilo, It would be an honor and a pleasure. Please go ahead. Kindly note the requirements for translations and be sure to follow them. Thanks!
Comprendiendo el diseño web is an authorized Spanish translation of Understanding Web Design.
[...] texto é a tradução de um trecho do artigo original Understanding Web Design, de Jeffrey Zeldman, na revista A List Apart. Translated with the permission of A List Apart Magazine and the author. [...]