5 web typography trends to look out for

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Earlier in the year we predicted the main typographic trends for 2018. Now, within web design specifically, we're seeing a few more themes starting to emerge. 

Many web designers are becoming a little more experimental with their work, and exploring new treatments to better tell their stories. 

In general, we're seeing headline typography becoming more integrated into the design of the page and looking less like it has just been plonked onto the canvas. Here are some examples of typographical treatments to look out for.

01. Typographic chaos

Phoenix splits words across the page to create interest

This trend kicked off a while ago and is still going strong. It sees web designers taking a more chaotic approach to the composition of typography on the page, splitting words and even letters to offer a more interesting look. An unconventional arrangement can pique the reader's curiosity.

02. Crop-and-cut type

Designers are leaving just enough to make their work readable

With the aim of creating interest and a more unique typographic design, designers are cropping or cutting letters up within a word, whilst leaving just enough to ensure the letters remain readable. There’s a really interesting neural behaviour that means humans can still read words, even if a number of characters are missing (take the game of Hangman, for example).

03. Negative space

The characters of your type can be a space to show images or videos

Integrating artwork into your typography is a wonderful way to make your text stand out. One great technique is to enable graphical elements to pop out of the negative space within the type itself, creating a dimensional space.

In a similar vein to the image above, YouTube displayed an animation within the title characters of each story in its Greatest Stories Retold project. The homepage showed a number of different animations within the headline, as a taste of what to expect.  

04. Graphical type

This Austrian restaurant shouts about its love of schnitzel

Enhancing flat typography graphically gives any textual elements more impact on the page. It might be that your typography is made furry or even paint-like. The objective here is to make your typography more like an object, as opposed to a character. 

05. Dynamic typography

Uncanny Valley plays around with moving type on its homepage

Here's another trend that's been around a while but is still going strong: several campaigns and sites have combined typography with motion to create a more dynamic effect. For a taster, take a look at our roundup of the best kinetic typography. 

This keeps viewers engaged by forcing them to read quickly to follow the message, and keeping their focus entirely on the words that are displayed.

A variation of this seen on websites is typography that moves and shifts on scroll, or in response to the user's mouse movements. 

This article was published in issue 271 of Web Designer magazine. Subscribe here.

Read more:

• 4 top typography tools for web designers
• The rules of responsive web typography
• 23 great places to download fonts for free

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