The column

The text is 672px — 42rem — plus 24px of padding on either side, giving a 45rem frame. The home page uses the same number, so moving from the list into an article does not shift the left and right edges of the words.

Size and line height

16px over 28px. Chinese characters fill their em box, so 15px of Chinese reads smaller and tighter than 15px of Latin; the size is a step up from the reference for that reason, and the line height stays at 28px.

How many characters to a line

672 ÷ 16 is 42 characters. The working range for setting Chinese is roughly 25 to 45 to a line, and 42 sits inside it.

Why there is no negative tracking

The English site this one learned from uses -0.05em, which corrects Latin letterforms. Set on characters that already fill their box, it presses them into each other.

Spacing

  • 20px between paragraphs
  • 44px above a heading, 16px below it
  • A 2px rule down the left of a quote

Headings

A heading sits further from what is above it than from what follows, which is how a reader sees at a glance which section it opens.