An em is a relative unit - it sets a font size relative to a base font
size - either set or if not set, the browser's default which is different
for each browser (not recommended).
To set a typographically good line height relative to this font size, the
usual factor is 1.5. Use a bit more if the measure is high (column is more
than 60-70 ems wide) and a bit less it under 40 ems. So your starting point
is a line height of 1.5x0.9 = 13.5em
Putting this into a blueprint context with attention to verical rhythm, you
need to either adopt this line height as your vertical rhythm and adjust
everything else to match, or use another verticle rythm based on the average
body font size beimh used in the site and adjust everything to match that
(use 5/4 and 4/3 leading adjustments as necessary).
If you are sticking to blueprint's default rhythm of 18px, then you are
setting your base font size so that 1em is equivalent to 12px to achieve a
1.5 line height.
These choices are all artistic choices guided by typographic guidelines to
maintain readability. There are no "right" answers except to saythe
defaults will give you a good start.
Find the body font size you like. Try a 1.5em line height and adjust as you
see fit. Whatever that number is becomes your vertical rhythm so adjust all
heading and alternate font sizes to achieve that baseline repeat. For help
with the math by using a framework that does the math for you (adjusts
everything to match your base font), look at compass-susy or compass-sass.
----- Original Message -----
From: <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, January 16, 2010 6:37 PM
Subject: Re: [BP #3758] 0.9em font size.. what line height?
pxtoem.com seems to help when finding the font size but how do i know what
line-height and margin-bottom to use?
On Jan 5, 2010, at 8:16 AM, rebus_ wrote:
2010/1/5 Christian Montoya <[email protected]>:
On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 6:26 AM, rebus_ <[email protected]> wrote:
Or better yet:
font-size: 0.917em;
line-height: 1.636em;
margin-bottom: 1.636em;
1.636em is 18px which should be good to follow vertical rythm (as
christian said in another topic)
Well remember that vertical rhythm does not necessarily dictate that
all lines have the same 18px line height. That's they way things are
set up in Blueprint because it is easy enough for beginners to learn,
but if you want to take the next step in web typography, I highly
recommend reading this:
http://www.markboulton.co.uk/journal/comments/incremental-leading
True, but for default blueprint setup this seems reasonable.
Davor
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