Chapter 6. Be Progressive: Font Sizing and FOUT
In this chapter weâre going to talk about two important aspects of being responsive with your type: sizing it appropriately and getting it on screen fast. While we covered absolute speed in the last chapter, in this one weâre going to tackle perceived speed, which ultimately may be more important. Weâll also look at a key aspect of the notion of Progressive Enhancement. Essentially, itâs planning for failure. You must design and code your site with the assumption that there will always be some point during the loading process or viewing experience when web fonts will not be presentâand handling that appropriately is essential. By designing and developing for the brief moments before web fonts load, youâre also addressing the (potentially) millions of visitors to your site for whom web fonts wonât load at all (i.e., those browsing via Opera Mini).[3]
On Units of Measure
There are lots of choices in sizing type, but if youâre looking to be most compatible with modern web design and development techniques, a relative unit of measure is extremely important. Rather than using a fixed unit of measure (px
), youâll want to use em
or rem
(cleverly meaning a relative em).
I tend to stick with em
s because if you base your text sizes, vertical margins and padding, and media query ...
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