Typography for people who are not typographers

Most bad typography is not the result of choosing the wrong typeface. It is the result of making six ordinary decisions slightly wrong, in the same direction, until the page feels vaguely cheap without anyone being able to say why.

Here are the six, in the order they matter.

1. Measure before typeface

The single highest-leverage change you can make to a body of text is the line length. Somewhere between 60 and 80 characters per line is the range where reading stops requiring effort. Wider than that and the eye loses its place returning to the left margin. Narrower and the rhythm breaks every few words.

Set the measure first. Then pick a typeface that looks good at that width, rather than picking a typeface and squeezing the layout around it.

2. Line height scales with line length

A common mistake is treating line height as a fixed number. It is not — it is a ratio that should grow as the measure grows. Short lines can breathe at 1.4. A wide column of serif body text will want 1.7 or more, because the return journey to the next line is longer and needs a clearer runway.

3. Two typefaces is a ceiling, not a target

One family with a real range of weights will out-perform three families chosen for variety. If you do use two, make them obviously different — a geometric sans against a bookish serif — so the contrast reads as deliberate rather than accidental.

If a reader notices the typeface before the sentence, something has gone wrong.

4. Size relationships, not sizes

Pick a base size that is comfortable on a phone — 17 to 19 pixels for body copy is a reasonable modern default — and derive everything else from a consistent scale. A 1.25 or 1.333 ratio gives you headings that feel related rather than arbitrary.

The failure mode here is a heading that is only slightly larger than the paragraph beneath it. Either commit to the hierarchy or remove it.

5. Space is structure

Whitespace is how a reader knows what belongs to what. A heading should sit noticeably closer to the paragraph it introduces than to the paragraph it follows. Get that one relationship right and half of your layout problems disappear.

6. Contrast, then check it

Light grey text on a white background reads as elegant on a calibrated monitor in a dim room, and as illegible on a phone in daylight. Aim for a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 on body text. It costs nothing and it is the accessibility fix with the widest reach.