What is Typography?
The short answer
Typography is the choice and arrangement of type, meaning fonts, sizes, weights, line length and spacing, to make text readable and give a site its voice.
What people say: “the fonts”, “the lettering”.
Typography, explained
Most of any website is text, so type does most of the design work. Comfortable body text, a clear size scale and lines of roughly 45 to 75 characters matter more than any single font.
Each web font is a download, so strong sites use few families and load them without blocking the first paint.
Questions people ask about Typography
What is Typography?
Typography is the choice and arrangement of type, meaning fonts, sizes, weights, line length and spacing, to make text readable and give a site its voice.
How many fonts should a website use?
Usually one or two families: one for headings, one for body, with weights providing the variety.
Related terms
Font pairing is choosing two or more typefaces that work together, often a distinctive one for headings and a neutral one for body text.
Web font loadingWeb font loading is how a page fetches and swaps in custom fonts; done badly it hides text or shifts layout, done well text shows immediately and swaps smoothly.
Visual hierarchyVisual hierarchy is arranging elements by size, colour, contrast and position so visitors see the most important thing first and the rest in order.
Kinetic typographyKinetic typography is text that moves, such as letters that assemble, words that slide in or headlines that scramble, to add energy and emphasis.
Part of the Web Encyclopedia by Apex Flow Digital. Definitions are general knowledge, kept current, with no invented statistics.