# How to Look at Type: Fundamentals of Web Typography - review & insight | Gareth B. Davies Source: https://garethbdavies.com/course-insights/how-to-look-at-type-fundamentals-of-web-typography/ [← All courses](https://garethbdavies.com/course-insights/) Graphic Design · Quick win · Rated 7 /10 # How to Look at Type: Fundamentals of Web Typography By Gareth B. Davies · Updated August 2026 Jason Santa Maria · Graphic Designer & Design Director Beginner · 49 min Nine short lessons teach you to judge type by eye, not vocabulary, through one real design project. [Get a Free Month on Skillshare](https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/3155494/298081/4650?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skillshare.com%2Fclasses%2Fhow-to-look-at-type-fundamentals-of-web-typography%2F246544835) New to Skillshare? Your first month is free, enough to take this course at no cost. ## A vocabulary lesson disguised as a font class Jason Santa Maria's "How to Look at Type" runs 49 minutes across nine lessons, and it spends almost none of that time on software or step-by-step production. Instead it builds a way of seeing: legibility versus readability, typeface versus font, the difference between typography (repeatable typesetting) and lettering (one-off illustration). These distinctions sound academic in isolation, but Santa Maria keeps tying them back to a single question worth asking about any typeface: does it fade into the background and serve the words, or does it call attention to itself? The course's spine is a single project, a one-page personal website with a headline, a short bio, and links to social accounts. Santa Maria builds his own version alongside the viewer, which turns abstract advice into a visible decision trail. When he explains contrast (the difference between a letter's thick and thin strokes) or x-height (how tall lowercase letters sit relative to capitals), he immediately points to a real typeface, like Proxima Nova's open counters or Mallory's engineering for small sizes, so the terms attach to something concrete rather than floating as jargon. ## Where the substance lives The strongest stretch is the adjective exercise in lesson six. Rather than starting from a classification like serif or sans serif, Santa Maria describes his own design sensibility as "blue-collar" and "bookish," then hunts for letterforms that embody those words. He extends this into a warning about "readymade" fonts, typefaces so loaded with a single mood, like a horror-movie font dripping in blood, that they can only ever say one thing. That warning is more useful than most beginner advice because it explains why a font can look right and still be a bad choice. The pairing and layout lessons that follow are solid but thinner. The rule of thumb, contrast a serif with a sans serif rather than combining two similar faces, is standard guidance stated clearly, and the walk through line length (45 to 75 characters), line height, and all-caps restraint gives beginners real, applicable numbers. But none of this goes deep. There is no coverage of variable fonts, responsive type scales, accessibility contrast ratios, or actual CSS implementation, and the practical lesson on file formats and licensing is compressed into a couple of minutes. ## Verdict This is an orientation, not a technical course. It succeeds at what it sets out to do: give someone who has never thought critically about fonts a working vocabulary and a method for narrowing down choices. Santa Maria's calm, example-driven delivery and the single running project keep it from feeling like a lecture on terminology. But anyone who already knows what x-height or a superfamily is, or who wants hands-on practice with @font-face declarations, variable font weights, or performance budgets, will find the 49 minutes thin. It is best treated as a fast primer to build intuition before diving into denser technical resources. The standout The adjective method, naming a few descriptive words like 'bookish' or 'strong' and hunting for letterforms that embody them, gives a concrete, repeatable way to start any typeface search instead of scrolling font sites aimlessly. ## What you will learn - · Distinguish legibility from readability and typeface from font - · Read letterform anatomy including contrast, x-height, and character set completeness - · Build a personal library of go-to typefaces organized by classification and mood - · Choose and pair a headline typeface against a body typeface using contrast principles - · Set line length, line height, and case decisions for a working web layout - · Spot 'readymade' fonts whose baked-in style limits their design use Best for: Beginners, marketers, and non-designers who choose fonts occasionally and want a vocabulary and eye for judging them well. Skip it if: Working designers or typography students who already know classification systems and pairing theory and need production-level or advanced technical instruction. Clarity of Instruction Helpful Examples Engaging Teacher Audio & Video Quality [Get a Free Month on Skillshare](https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/3155494/298081/4650?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skillshare.com%2Fclasses%2Fhow-to-look-at-type-fundamentals-of-web-typography%2F246544835)