The aesthetics of web page text
By Richard Hughes - Copywriter
“How does this look?”
It’s the kind of question you might expect to hear from a designer rather than a copywriter. But considering the visual impact of web page text can be just as important as asking “How does this read?”
Indeed, text can take on a whole new meaning or purpose depending on its surroundings, typeface or supporting imagery.
It’s common practice for writers to develop copy in a Word document (or similar) and send the near-blank canvas to design never to be seen again. After all, it’s the designer’s job to make your words look good, right?
Well, half right. Certainly Word is a good place to start – allowing you to easily keep an eye on your word count and readability statistics (once fathomed, they are a valid measure). But ultimately the appeal of your copy, and its success thereafter, is your responsibility – and that means reviewing in-situ once it’s back from design.
The In-situ review
For web-based work, it’s a simple case of looking at your copy on page, on screen. Does it work in terms of its length after imagery has been added? Are the paragraphs sufficiently brief enough that the reader won’t get a headache?
Perhaps more importantly, has your cleverly crafted headline strayed across two lines, leaving an unsightly ‘widow’ that reduces its impact?
It’s all simple enough to check in advance. Just copy and paste your text from Word into HTML and see how it comes together. If you’re writing new copy for an existing site that you don’t yet have access to, you could replicate this by taking a screen-grab of the page and dropping your new copy over the top.
When you’re dealing with print work, you should be demanding a post-design copy of your work anyway, in order to proof read. But rather than just checking for typos, spare a thought for the appearance of your words.
Make sure the emphasis has been put on the right words, the key messages. Ensure also that the overall tone of your piece isn’t compromised by styles or colours – the copy and design should complement each other, not fight for prominence. The same applies to materials online.
The right font
Perhaps most importantly, when dealing with brand guidelines, check that you’re happy with how your copy looks in its font. If not, don’t hesitate to change it. Remove the exclamation mark that just looks too blocky or change the over-sized ampersand for a simpler ‘and’. Evoking a change in corporate branding may take years – but these changes can clean up your text and make your words more readable in a matter of seconds.
If not, don’t hesitate
to change it.
Fonts are important from several perspectives. Firstly, they can convey a certain style that may not be reflected in the tone of your copy – or even appeal to an audience that you haven’t targeted. For example there are fonts considered more feminine, which wouldn’t fit with a sales letter to builders or plumbers, predominantly male jobs. Even the colour of the font, or the design around your words, could be calling out to the wrong people.
On a more practical note, some fonts can make italic or bold text ugly and even illegible. With that in mind, it’s good practice to use your client’s corporate font even when you’re writing that first draft in Word.
This once again returns us to the underlying principle behind this article and web copywriting as a whole - readability.
If you’re still reading, we’ve got something right…
Everything mentioned above is geared to making web copy as accessible and readable as possible.
Put simply, the better it looks, the more likely people are to invest time in reading it. Few people actively enjoy reading from a screen as it is - obstacles such as poor font, disjointed headings or cluttered paragraphs just make matters worse.
One final point - don’t make the mistake of thinking that readability boils down to good grammar and spelling. While these factors are obviously of great importance, they can sometimes work against readability.
A recent office debate centred on a list of our very own selling points – you’ll find it elsewhere on the site. Originally written with semi-colons between each point, it was eventually changed to full stops. Grammatically incorrect, almost certainly – but ultimately it was punchier, cleaner and more readable.
What’s more, it looked good.
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