Alignment is a major factor when considering the look and feel of pages on the web. On the web, body text should be left justified and titles or headings should also be flush left. Only in rare cases does a designer require justified text. In these cases, the width of the text must be wide enough to provide the proper word spacing in the text and titles or headings should be aligned center. A significant factor with alignment is the margins around the text. Margins represent the spaces between elements on a page. They help keep text in sections distinct from other elements on the page or the browser window. Margins, when used consistently, provide unity and structure for pages on the web.

Designers wanting to create more freedom between elements should use larger margins to create space. If they want to create a more constricted look, they should use smaller margins to create a sense of intimacy. Until the future of typography changes, designers should avoid using justified text due to the inability of hyphenation on web pages. This causes the look of pages to suffer due to differing spaces between words.

Limitations

Since the implementation of font tags and CSS, designers can specify any typeface for their web pages, but many computers only have the default fonts installed on them. If the typeface specified is not on the web user’s computer, the default font is shown on the browser. While designers can choose multiple fonts the browser may use in the order given, the control over the look of the web page is not as strong as it is with print media. The best way to achieve the most desired look is to specify the generic font such as “sans serif” at the end of the list. In this case, the browser will display the text in any sans serif font accessible. No matter how hard a designer tries to develop the perfect combination of typeface and size, the user can still designate any typeface and size he or she wants, and there is nothing the designer can do about it. Because the designer does not have complete control over the finished product on the web, it is often seen as a disadvantage compared to print media. However, this concept of “user control” can be perceived as a strong point of the web. There is no other communication medium that gives this much control to the end user. The best device designers can use is to merely offer a blueprint for the design and leave the final say up to the reader.

Conclusion: The Future of Typography

One way designers have worked around the limitations of web typography is to use image and Flash text replacement techniques to display custom typefaces, which allows for more control over the page. A recent Flash replacement method is SIFR (or Scalable Inman Flash Replacement pronounced siffer). SIFR gives access to embedding custom typefaces in web pages without the user having it on their machine. Another tool that can be used is Microsoft’s Web Embedding Fonts Tool (WEFT), which stores fonts on a web server to be available for download when needed. This tool has not caught on because no browsers other than Microsoft’s IE have implemented the technology. Even though these techniques give a glimpse of the future, it is merely a quick fix to the current limitations of web typography. When these new techniques are fully developed, a new era of web typography will be ushered in.