Typography
All text in Vanilla uses the Ubuntu typeface , which can be used in your projects.
Vanilla's typographic scale has a base font-size of 1rem
.
The value of 1rem
The pixel value of 1rem
depends on the browser (in most cases, 16px
) and the user's browser settings.
In addition to that, Vanilla multiplies that value by $font-size-ratio--largescreen
on resolutions above a certain threshold ($font-size-largescreen
). This is done to account for the bigger distance at which larger screens are usually positioned from the viewer.
To disable this behaviour, include the following after you import and include the framework in your scss
:
$increase-font-size-on-larger-screens: false;
Text elements in vanilla adhere to a type scale:
- The base of the scale is the paragraph font-size (
1rem
) - The ratio of the scale is
1.14285714286
(16/14, so both 14 and 16 are members of the scale)
Heading sizes are obtained by taking the ratio to a specified power
listed in the table below.
Typographic scale
Small-Medium | Large | |
---|---|---|
power |
6 |
8 |
font size | 2.22819rem |
2.91029rem |
line height | 3rem |
3.5rem |
power |
4.5 |
6 |
font size | 1.83274rem |
2.22819rem |
line height | 2.5rem |
3rem |
power |
3 |
4 |
font size | 1.49271rem |
1.70596rem |
line height | 2rem |
2.5rem |
power |
1.5 |
2 |
font size | 1.22176rem |
1.30612rem |
line height | 1.5rem |
2rem |
power |
1 |
1 |
font size | 1rem |
1rem |
line height | 1.5rem |
1.5rem |
power |
1 |
1 |
font size | 1rem |
1rem |
line height | 1.5rem |
1.5rem |
power |
1 |
1 |
font size | 1rem |
1rem |
line height | 1.5rem |
1.5rem |
Heading classes
Heading classes can be added to text elements to give them the same visual
appearance as the base h1
-h6
heading elements without sacrificing correct
heading order and semantics.
In the following example, each heading is actually a <p>
element that has been
modified to look like a particular heading size.
Sub-headings
Sub-headings visually convey importance beneath a heading, or a line of text that expands on the meaning of the heading immediately before it.
Mixed heading classes
It is also possible to apply heading classes directly to heading elements if that better suits your document style and tree.
Line length
Line length, measured in number of characters per line (CPL), has been shown to affect reading speed and comprehension. While there is little consensus on what the optimal CPL value is, most studies test with values between 45 and 95 characters per line. Wikipedia has a good historical overview and a list of studies on the subject.
The max-width of text elements in Vanilla Framework is limited using the $text-max-width
variable, currently set to 40em
, or around 90 characters.
Vanilla also includes a utility to unset the max-width where necessary – u-no-max-width
:
Overriding or unsetting the max-width
is reasonable in certain cases:
- to avoid an orphan in some fixed, high-profile text, like a promotional banner or notification.
- when content is wrapped in a text element unintentionally, and fixing the markup is not possible. For example, a CMS or a documentation service might insert
<p>
after every line break, resulting in<div>
's or<iframe>
's wrapped in<p>
's.
Ordered list
Use an ordered list when the order of the items is important.
Unordered list
Use an unordered list when the order of the items isn't important.
Definition list
Use a definition list when you want to list a group of one or more terms and descriptions.
Blockquotes and citations
Small text
Small caps text
Small caps text is used to style column headers in tables. This styling has proved useful in other contexts. To apply it, add the class p-text--small-caps
.
Deprecated
Previously this style was implemented as .p-text--x-small-capitalised
class name. This name is now deprecated and will be removed in next major version of Vanilla, please use .p-text--small-caps
instead.
Baseline alignment: small, extra small and paragraph text
Because of the difference in line heights, small, extra small and paragraph text do not share the same baseline.
In some cases, for example when used on the same line, it can be useful to align them. Use the u-align-text--small-to-default
u-align-text--x-small-to-default
classes to achieve baseline alignment.
Deprecated
Small caps style used to be implemented as extra small text variant with .p-text--x-small-capitalised
class name that required the .u-align-text--x-small-to-default
utility to align the baseline. This is not the case any more, so usage of this utility with new .p-text--small-caps
(and its deprecated equivalent .p-text--x-small-capitaised
) is deprecated and can be removed.
Strong text
Superscripted text
Subscripted text
Abbreviation
Font weights
If you are using the variable Ubuntu font, it comes in six weights; thin, light, regular, medium, bold and extra bold.
Muted text
To reduce the prominence of text, use class u-text--muted
.
Enabling Cyrillic, Greek and Latin fonts
Due to the extra weight of loading these fonts they are not imported by default. To enable Cyrillic, Greek and Latin fonts on Ubuntu please set the following font setting to true.
$font-allow-cyrillic-greek-latin: true;
Deprecated
In previous versions of Vanilla (< 3.10.0
) there used to be an option $font-use-subset-latin
for only importing a part of the Latin subset.
This has been made redundant by the adoption of the variable font and should be removed from your project.
font-display
options
The CSS font-display
option allows you to set a strategy for what backup font is shown while an external font is loading. This is a very subjective decision; however, if you set the following variable to the option you want, it will add it to the typography for you.
$font-display-option: <auto | block | swap | fallback | optional>;
The default value of the font-display
property on all fonts used by Vanilla is set to fallback
.
Import
To import just this base element into your project, copy the snippet below and include it in your main Sass file.
@import 'patterns_headings';
For more information see Customising Vanilla in your projects, which includes overrides and importing instructions.
Related
For more typographic related information view the code and pull quote pattern component or our font settings.