Typography Decisions I Make That Actually Matter
Typography is full of micro-decisions. Some matter visually, some matter for readability, some matter for performance. Here is what I focus on. Typography is one of the areas of design that expands the more I learn it. Once I knew there were serif and sans-serif fonts. Now I spend time on body text size, line height, line length, tracking, vertical rhythm, weight hierarchy, and font loading strategy, and each one matters. After a few years I have learned which decisions actually affect the work and which are aesthetic preferences that I should stop fussing over. Here is the set of decisions I focus on and the ones I deliberately ignore. Body Text Size Is the Most Important Decision Body text size affects everything else, and it is the decision I used to under-invest in. Too small and the text is uncomfortable to read, especially on mobile. Too large and the design reads as a children's book. The right size depends on the audience, the screen, and the line length. For most web work I land between sixteen and eighteen pixels for body text on desktop, and at least seventeen pixels on mobile. The numbers sound trivial; the difference is not. More guides are on the Spark Blog.