April 24, 2011 at 23:31Web typography culture
- Transfer
Web designers have always had a difficult relationship with typography.
On the one hand, most web designers are not trained as a "typographer", unlike traditional graphic designers. On the other hand, there was simply no typography in the web.
The main problem: the lack of history.
Let's face it. With respect to the vast history of typography in typography, the history of typography on the web is negligible. We look like a teenager who just got a driver’s license: great power and responsibility and lack of experience.
Since web typography has not yet been fully formed, there are two development paths:
1) Try to recreate classic typography on the screen
2) Or go a completely new, unknown path.
The problem with the first option is that typography cannot be completely transferred to the web. The second option is similar to shooting with your eyes closed: something will hit the target, but most bullets will go by.
Rule number 1: Search for the guilty.
Let's look at the first real problem: blaming something or someone. If they would give me a dollar every time I heard a web designer complain that different browsers display fonts differently, or that someone changing the content changes its location, or that the client refused to do as the designer advises him, I would be a millionaire.
This is all I call "professional risk." Every web designer knows about them and faces these problems every day. This will continue until the web-standard of typography appears (which, it seems to me, will not appear soon). I'm not trying to say that this is irrelevant, but all our efforts are ruined by a random worker who copies texts for $ 8 per hour or the notorious IE6.
A serious web typographer works beyond these problems. Layout can be tested in all popular browsers; the text on the page should be placed with "protection from the fool"; customers can be sent “ softly” to explain the problem.
Rule number 2: Typography is your task.
By returning to the printing presses, prints, and the manual set of layouts, you can clearly identify the person responsible for printing. Usually this was a guy whose hands were covered with black paint and he only knew how the printing press worked. Most often, this was the only person in the city who could read at all. And so you implicitly believed him when he explained how to print your publication.
Customers brought content, typesetters posted text. Everyone was satisfied.
Currently, a lot of “knowledgeable” people have appeared, because everyone has access to Microsoft Word and the keyboard. Designers must make their way across the ocean of unaware printers at the design stage.
Do not get me wrong, you need to listen to the opinion of the client, but decisions must be made in accordance with the experience of the typographer. This is the work of the designer. If you are gliding through the project, just waiting for the client to choose the font and line length, then it is better to quit. By working in this way you become a tool with which the client moves the mouse.
Be a designer and take responsibility for it. Typography is your job.
Rule number 3: Text is part of the user interface.
When you think about the user interface, what do you think? Scrolling menus in iPod Classic? Your car dashboard? All these may be examples of user interfaces, but I would like you to look at it from the point of view of web design. Let's take a brief look at the interface trends over the past decade:
Consider several brands that have existed all this time and are not yet going to die.
Do any of them claim to be a "great user interface"? Probably not. But everyone has a very good (and whether we like it or not, convenient) design. So why do web designers create websites that have nothing to do with these examples?
IMHO, all this is due to the fact that our industry is not yet developed, we all hope to find a “new style” and try to avoid boring, but functional projects. We do not even allow the thought that something developed back in 2005 can still be used. We are of the opinion that the more complex the project decision and the more prominent the texture of the background, the more convenient it is for the end user.
Obviously, a simple text, without all these effects of bubbles, glow and glare, is already perfect and ready to use.
Why? Because text is part of the user interface! Before you select a gradient fill tool, think about it - text is a user interface. You cannot make a convenient website without text. Web users will adapt to any style and design, but the basic elements (text + navigation) should be convenient and should work.
Rule number 4: Take CSS seriously
The last thing I wanted to look at this time was the web typography tool: CSS. With well-written CSS, your entire site will look logical, the display in all browsers will be the same, the nerves of the content manager will remain intact.
If you consider yourself a web designer, but only know how to typeset layouts in Photoshop, then you are a web designer only half. Typography on the web is always displayed on the screen using code.
On the one hand, most web designers are not trained as a "typographer", unlike traditional graphic designers. On the other hand, there was simply no typography in the web.
The main problem: the lack of history.
Let's face it. With respect to the vast history of typography in typography, the history of typography on the web is negligible. We look like a teenager who just got a driver’s license: great power and responsibility and lack of experience.
Since web typography has not yet been fully formed, there are two development paths:
1) Try to recreate classic typography on the screen
2) Or go a completely new, unknown path.
The problem with the first option is that typography cannot be completely transferred to the web. The second option is similar to shooting with your eyes closed: something will hit the target, but most bullets will go by.
Rule number 1: Search for the guilty.
Let's look at the first real problem: blaming something or someone. If they would give me a dollar every time I heard a web designer complain that different browsers display fonts differently, or that someone changing the content changes its location, or that the client refused to do as the designer advises him, I would be a millionaire.
This is all I call "professional risk." Every web designer knows about them and faces these problems every day. This will continue until the web-standard of typography appears (which, it seems to me, will not appear soon). I'm not trying to say that this is irrelevant, but all our efforts are ruined by a random worker who copies texts for $ 8 per hour or the notorious IE6.
A serious web typographer works beyond these problems. Layout can be tested in all popular browsers; the text on the page should be placed with "protection from the fool"; customers can be sent “ softly” to explain the problem.
Rule number 2: Typography is your task.
By returning to the printing presses, prints, and the manual set of layouts, you can clearly identify the person responsible for printing. Usually this was a guy whose hands were covered with black paint and he only knew how the printing press worked. Most often, this was the only person in the city who could read at all. And so you implicitly believed him when he explained how to print your publication.
Customers brought content, typesetters posted text. Everyone was satisfied.
Currently, a lot of “knowledgeable” people have appeared, because everyone has access to Microsoft Word and the keyboard. Designers must make their way across the ocean of unaware printers at the design stage.
Do not get me wrong, you need to listen to the opinion of the client, but decisions must be made in accordance with the experience of the typographer. This is the work of the designer. If you are gliding through the project, just waiting for the client to choose the font and line length, then it is better to quit. By working in this way you become a tool with which the client moves the mouse.
Be a designer and take responsibility for it. Typography is your job.
Rule number 3: Text is part of the user interface.
When you think about the user interface, what do you think? Scrolling menus in iPod Classic? Your car dashboard? All these may be examples of user interfaces, but I would like you to look at it from the point of view of web design. Let's take a brief look at the interface trends over the past decade:
- In the early 2000s, web designers thought that a good user interface meant a lot of brushed metal, pseudo-photorealistic buttons and glowing envelopes.
- In the mid-2000s, web designers thought that a good user interface required the use of glossy buttons, vibrant colors and sparkling graphics.
- In the late 2000s, web designers thought it was using embossed textures, a “desktop” or notepad, and bold fonts.
- Now we are obsessed with a “noisy” background and white shadows from texts.
Consider several brands that have existed all this time and are not yet going to die.
Do any of them claim to be a "great user interface"? Probably not. But everyone has a very good (and whether we like it or not, convenient) design. So why do web designers create websites that have nothing to do with these examples?
IMHO, all this is due to the fact that our industry is not yet developed, we all hope to find a “new style” and try to avoid boring, but functional projects. We do not even allow the thought that something developed back in 2005 can still be used. We are of the opinion that the more complex the project decision and the more prominent the texture of the background, the more convenient it is for the end user.
Obviously, a simple text, without all these effects of bubbles, glow and glare, is already perfect and ready to use.
Why? Because text is part of the user interface! Before you select a gradient fill tool, think about it - text is a user interface. You cannot make a convenient website without text. Web users will adapt to any style and design, but the basic elements (text + navigation) should be convenient and should work.
Rule number 4: Take CSS seriously
The last thing I wanted to look at this time was the web typography tool: CSS. With well-written CSS, your entire site will look logical, the display in all browsers will be the same, the nerves of the content manager will remain intact.
If you consider yourself a web designer, but only know how to typeset layouts in Photoshop, then you are a web designer only half. Typography on the web is always displayed on the screen using code.