The Spanner

A link to a session at this years SXSW Interactive, an excellent short set of slides with notes about web typography.

http://webtypography.net/sxsw2007/

There are a lot of notes and ideas in here that clarify a few thoughts for me, but it was also good to see that 90% of it, I do as standard practice. Despite studying Graphic Design at college, I’ll hold my hand up and say it taught me nothing about typography except x-height and leading. Seriously, and it’s not because I was drunk all the time.

So with the relevance to web typography, I mailed this link to a friend of mine working at a large and very reputable design agency in London. We work together on a lot of projects, he designs, I build, and I’m always sending him snippets and links to help him understand a bit about what can and can’t be done on the web.

He mailed back and said yeah, great piece, but he can’t believe so many people don’t know the basics. That got me thinking. I’m guessing a lot of web/CSS programmers don’t know the basics because, well, they never studied them. They might have had a passing interest in design, or have fallen into it through learning CSS, but they’re oblivious to the rules. They wouldn’t know a Golden Triangle if it smacked them in the face.

I know I’ve got knowledge gaps in my type and layout arsenal, but I’m trying to rectify that. (I’ve recently order Stop Stealing Sheep and Find Out How Type Works and The Elements of Typographic Style, and I’m re-reading Grid Systems). A lot of work is done by web programmers to raise awareness of designers to whats happening with CSS and the new browser capabilities, but this is a two way street. Web programmers would do well to learn some basic design rules too.