Typography and Color

First impressions online happen fast — often in less than three seconds. Visitors instantly judge a site’s credibility based on its visual appeal, and two of the biggest factors are typography and color. Your font choices and color palette don’t just influence readability; they also communicate your brand personality and set the tone for the entire user experience.

Good typography works hand-in-hand with design to create an engaging, trustworthy, and accessible site. The key considerations are:

• Readability – Fonts should be easy to read on all devices and screen sizes.
• Compatibility – Use widely supported fonts or web-embedded fonts (such as Google Fonts) to ensure consistent rendering.
• Brand Tone – Choose typefaces that match your brand’s personality (formal, modern, casual, playful).

For most websites, sans-serif fonts work best for body text, while serif fonts can add contrast in headings or special callouts.

Typography Best Practices

• Be consistent across all pages — same fonts, sizes, and styles.
• Limit decorative fonts to headings; body text should be clean and simple.
• Ensure strong color contrast for readability — light text on dark backgrounds or dark text on light backgrounds.
• Use bold, italics, and capitalization sparingly for emphasis.
• Maintain comfortable line height and spacing to avoid a cramped look.
• Load only the font weights and styles you need to improve performance.

Common Web-Safe Fallback Stacks

Even with modern web font embedding, it’s best practice to provide fallback font stacks for browsers that can’t load your primary font.

CSS Typography Essentials

• font-style: normal, italic, oblique
• font-variant: normal, small-caps
• font-weight: normal, bold, 100–900
• font-size: responsive units (em, rem, vw) over fixed px
• color: use hex, RGB, or HSL values for precision
• text-transform: capitalize, uppercase, lowercase
• line-height: improves legibility; 1.4–1.6 is common
• letter-spacing: adjusts character spacing

Color for the Web

Color has a powerful influence on user experience. The right palette supports brand recognition, guides attention, and improves readability. Poor color choices can make a site feel unprofessional, chaotic, or hard to use.

Three Common Color Approaches

• Analogous: Three colors next to each other on the color wheel (e.g., yellow-green, yellow, yellow-orange).
• Complementary: Opposite colors on the color wheel for strong contrast (e.g., blue/orange, red/green).
• Nature-Inspired: Sampling colors from photographs or natural settings for harmonious palettes.

Accessibility & Color Contrast

Color should enhance clarity, not create barriers. High contrast between text and background improves readability for everyone, including those with low vision or color blindness.

• Meet WCAG AA contrast standards (4.5:1 for normal text, 3:1 for large text).
• Limit palettes to 3–4 core hues for simplicity.
• Avoid relying on color alone to convey meaning — pair with icons or text.