Making Nice Web Type

My name is Tim Brown. I'm designing Nice Web Type's tumblelog from scratch.

FYI, I'm now applying design changes to (and flowing live content into) Nice Web Type tumblelog. Still writing about the making here, but go there for visual status.

More cleanup

I haven’t begun my design process yet, but I did just update this site’s typeface, text size, and leading, and I’ve added a very brief description of the project up top. I added the description so new visitors know what’s up (and where to start). I changed the typeface and type spacing because I wanted to get Typekit set up — now I don’t have to think about the blog-to-Typekit connection as I design, I can just use my kit editor and focus on type.

I chose FacitWeb, one of my screen favorites, to take us through my design process. It may, or may not, be the typeface I choose in the end, but for now it does a great job. It’s humble, legible, and built really well. The leading I’ve chosen might not be ideal.

Leading and line-height

That reminds me, I recently read about the difference between the typographic term “leading” and the CSS property “line-height.” They’re not the same thing, exactly. Leading is the amount of space between lines of text; line-height is that value plus the text size. When we specify line-height in CSS, browsers calculate and halve the leading, then apply it equally above and below our line of text.

That’s all for today. Here’s how we used to look:

1 year ago

My name is Tim Brown. I'm designing Nice Web Type's tumblelog from scratch.