10 Principles for Typography in UI Design

Typography involves so much more than choosing a great font. When used effectively, it can enhance usability, readability, accessibility, and hierarchy within an interface. In this piece, I’ll share some tips and industry-standard principles for using type like a pro in a UI.

1. Typography Terminology

Typography terminology creates the foundation of our knowledge of type. Think of typography terms like kerning, leading, and weight as levers that we can pull to create more readable and aesthetically pleasing designs.TrackingTracking or letter-spacing refers to uniformly increasing or decreasing the horizontal spacing between a range of characters.BaselineThe baseline is the invisible line upon which a line of text rests.LeadingLeading is the vertical spacing between two baselines of type. This is more frequently called line-height in the modern age. Oh, and it’s also pronounced “ledding.”WeightWeight refers to the relative thickness of a font’s stroke.Serif/Sans SerifA serif is a small line or stroke regularly attached to the end of a letter or symbol within a particular font or family of fonts. A typeface that does not include serifs is a sans serif one (sans = without).