Soujanya Ponnapalli

Soujanya Ponnapalli

Postdoctoral Scholar | Sky Lab EECS Department

Professional Font Implementation

Professional Font Implementation

Overview

This document outlines the professional font implementation for the Soujanya Ponnapalli academic website.

Font Stack Implementation

Primary Fonts

  1. Inter - Modern, highly legible sans-serif font for body text and UI elements
    • Weights: 300, 400, 500, 600, 700
    • Purpose: Main body text, navigation, and general content
  2. Source Serif Pro - Professional serif font for headings and titles
    • Weights: 300, 400, 600, 700
    • Purpose: Page titles, section headings, and academic content
  3. JetBrains Mono - Modern monospace font for code blocks
    • Weights: 400, 500, 600
    • Purpose: Code snippets, technical content, and inline code

Font Hierarchy

  • Body Text: Inter (400 weight)
  • Headings: Source Serif Pro (600 weight)
  • Navigation: Inter (400-700 weight)
  • Code: JetBrains Mono (400 weight)

Implementation Details

Files Modified

  1. _sass/_variables.scss - Updated font variables and added font weight variables
  2. _sass/_base.scss - Enhanced typography with better spacing and rendering
  3. _sass/_masthead.scss - Updated navigation font family
  4. _includes/head.html - Added Google Fonts import
  5. _includes/head/custom.html - Added custom typography styles

Key Improvements

  • Font Rendering: Added -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased and -moz-osx-font-smoothing: grayscale
  • Text Rendering: Optimized with text-rendering: optimizeLegibility
  • Letter Spacing: Improved readability with negative letter spacing for headings
  • Line Height: Increased to 1.6 for better readability
  • Font Loading: Preconnect to Google Fonts for faster loading

Typography Scale

  • Maintained existing type scale but enhanced with better font weights
  • Added consistent font weight variables for maintainability
  • Improved heading hierarchy with serif fonts for academic content

Benefits

  1. Professional Appearance: Modern, clean typography suitable for academic content
  2. Improved Readability: Better contrast and spacing for long-form content
  3. Consistency: Unified font system across all pages
  4. Performance: Optimized font loading with preconnect and display swap
  5. Accessibility: High contrast and clear typography for better accessibility

Browser Support

  • Modern browsers with Google Fonts support
  • Graceful fallback to system fonts
  • Progressive enhancement approach

Testing

The implementation has been tested with:

  • Jekyll build process
  • Local development server
  • Cross-browser compatibility considerations