Today's Topic: Typography and CSS Formatting

The most important part of most web sites is the text, but many web developers know little or nothing about typography, or about how to use CSS to control typographic presentation effectively.

We’ll talk about basic typographic terms, concepts, and formats. Then we’ll spend some time exploring advanced CSS formatting properties.

Readings on Typography and CSS Formatting

• Web Style Guide: Typography
• Web Page Design for Designers: Typography
• A List Apart: Typography Matters
• A List Apart: The Trouble With EM ’n EN (and Other Shady Characters)
• A List Apart: Reading Design
• The Noodle Incident: Sane Text Sizing

And a how-to for CSS text properties:

• CSS Guide: CSS Properties

In-Class Exercise: CSS and Typography

Select a poem that you like from the “Verse” section of Bartleby.com.

Use CSS to modify the appearance of the poem.

Use Dean Allen’s Textile tool to generate valid HTML entities for punctuation, as needed.

When you’re done, upload the html file (and external CSS, if you used one) to your Grace account, and add an entry to your class weblog with a link to the page. If you don’t already have a category set up in your weblog for in-class exercises you should add one—that will let me view your in-class work easily at the end of the quarter when I’m assessing participation.