We see typography everywhere but it’s not until now that I’ve realized its importance. As Oliver Reichenstein said, “Web Design is 95% Typography”. Choose the right typography so your text will have meaning and take advantage of modern browsers as we are no longer limited to “web-safe” fonts.
I find myself in a place where I choose typography for its readability and I definitely prefer sans-serif (unless for headings, then I wouldn’t mind serif), with larger x-height and bigger counters. Here is a list of three websites that I find pleasant to read.
Uber
My first example would be Uber, as I like its simplicity and how easy it is to read the text. They use the same logo typeface for the text, making a consistent experience for their customers. Also, they use the same font for the entire website, they just change the style to highlight the different lockups, for example, sub-brands, organizational brands, and programs.
The name of their font is Uber Move and as mentioned on their website it was designed to maximize its impact across all applications while keeping it easy to read, ownable, and highly recognizable. The colors they use for their typography is black and white, and they only use blue as a safety color, for moments of support or assurance to the users.
Dear Design Student
Dear Design Studio is a website that gives advice on design from designers to designers, talking about different subjects such as ethics, criticism, education, etc.
When I am reading as a hobby I prefer books over websites, but I have recently found myself using this website to read very interesting content that they post on their blog, and the font they use for their headings and body is very easy to read, it had a nice size of line-height which make the information easier to absorb without feeling overwhelmed.
Although I prefer Sans-serif, for any part of the document, I have noticed that what I like the most about their font is the headings of the blog posts, which is a Serif font, I think the main reason is because of the bar height of the “e” as it is a bit higher than other typefaces, giving some personality to their website.
CIRQ.
CIRQ. is a popular winemaking business, Michael Browne, the founder, and the proprietor was inspired by his childhood memories in the circus to design the labels of his wines. His wines include labels similar to circus tickets and old ledgers.
This is a typeface I would normally avoid as I am not a fan of typewriter-style because I think it is too serious therefore too boring for a large amount of information, but because I’ve seen their labels and I know a bit of his story then I think it definitely makes sense why this font is such a good complement for their website.
The background of the paragraphs is plain, just one light color, so the information is the only point of focus, and the tracking space of this typeface is wide enough to make it easier to read.
The only thing I do not like about this website is the use of text-indent, as I think it looks nice for printing but not for a digital platform, especially with that typeface, so instead of using text-indent to separate the paragraphs, I would use a margin-top for each paragraph, making the information more visually pleasant.