Typography
In short
Typography is design with type: which typeface, at what size, with what spacing, at what line length and in what order of importance. It decides whether a text is read or merely skimmed, and whether a page looks orderly or thrown together. Good typography barely gets noticed. Bad typography is noticed at once – even by people who would never use the word.
The common mistake: typography means picking a font
The typeface is the smallest part of the decision. The same typeface feels tiring with tight leading and overlong lines, and calm with air and a short measure. In «The Elements of Typographic Style», Robert Bringhurst gives 45 to 75 characters as a comfortable line length.
What typography really delivers is hierarchy: what is the headline, what is the introduction, what is secondary? When everything is equally loud, nobody reads on.
How to spot bad typography
Too many typefaces, too many sizes, too little space. A page with five font sizes that barely differ has no hierarchy, only noise.
And contrast: light grey text on white looks elegant and is simply unreadable for many people. WCAG 2.2 requires a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for normal text.
For a Swiss company
Switzerland helped shape 20th-century typography: Helvetica was created in 1957 as «Neue Haas Grotesk» at the Haas type foundry in Münchenstein, and the Swiss Style with its strict grid and flush-left setting is still taught worldwide. A heritage that sets a standard – and no excuse to use Helvetica for everything.
In practice something more mundane matters: a web font needs a licence that covers use on a website. A desktop licence for print is usually not enough.
How we handle it
We define typography as a system, not a one-off choice: a scale with fixed steps, fixed line spacing and clear rules for what gets set in bold. Our own system grows by a factor of 1.333 per step and sets every text flush left.
The system is built together with the corporate design and stored in code so it applies identically on every page – part of our brand identity work and of every website we build.
Related terms
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