Go Behind the Design with Brian Miller, an award-winning designer and lecturer and author of "Above the Fold: Understanding the Principles of Successful Web Site Design."

For most of Miller's life he has revered the typographic components of designs. In his youth he found himself redrawing comic book titles while his friends were sketching out the superhero characters. This love for type has helped shape his knowledge and understanding of it, and today he is passionate about teaching others.

“Type is the most important thing in a design, because the type carries the message. Without that message, you don’t really have a useful design. So if the typography is wrong, the design is wrong.”

As with print design, a website’s main purpose can be to communicate, and text may be critical to that communication. As a result, many websites contain large amounts of body text that can feel cluttered and confusing. Due to early limitations set by HTML, the world has come to forgive and even expect a lower quality of type and design choices on the web. However, with fast-moving advances in the development of web tools, great typography on the web is easy to achieve and should be considered a core skill for any web designer. Websites can now deliver information that is organized by visual cues. Thanks to CSS and options like Adobe® Typekit®, there is an increase in font choices and more ability to control font weights, line heights, and letter spacing. Now designers can lay out content in a way that lets users skim to find what they need, letting their eye lead them to headlines, pull quotes, or a Johnson Box, for example.

Miller's work successfully applies these and other design fundamentals to his projects for the web and digital world. In his book, "Above the Fold," Brian helps designers understand the core principles of communication design within the context of the web without delving too deeply into technical aspects. He lays out a framework for effective visuals on the web and urges designers to explore the boundaries that define a successful design.

About the book

In the first section of "Above the Fold," Miller explores design and typography but realistically notes that "designing for clients is significantly more challenging than designing for designers." A designer can always appreciate a good design, but a client may be more concerned with ROI. So while Miller lays the groundwork for crafting beautiful websites, he also covers planning, usability, and business value — equally important subjects to help you, the aspiring web designer, become a strategic partner to your customer's business success.

Visit Miller's Above the Fold site to learn more.