Université de Bordeaux: a serif for culture, a sans-serif for the screen

We retained the existing colour palette, using blue in small touches to keep a reassuring feel overall. After a study of the leading players in higher education, and to give the site international stature, we chose to put in place a simple, restrained and structured design. The form serves the content, where the typography plays a leading role. For typography, we chose to use a Serif font (with serifs) already present in the identity for the headings, echoing the themes of literature, publishing and culture. For the body content, we chose Work Sans (sans-serif), which offers better readability on every type of screen. The two typefaces are intended to feel modern, with clean, precise curves that resonate with the teaching theme.

The choices of colours and typography meet accessibility standards so that the portal can be as inclusive as possible. The font used for the body content is a sans-serif font with sufficient line spacing, bringing better readability and improving reading comfort for the user (using a serif font for small text can hurt readability). Colours are used sparingly, mainly to make the elements to highlight stand out: key figures, important terms, graphic elements… all while keeping a certain graphic elegance. Colour is not everything. White space matters just as much. White space lets the content breathe, better separates the elements and, as a result, makes reading and navigation easier. Aesthetic graphic choices grounded in genuine thinking about use and accessibility.

This logic guarantees consistency across the whole site, offers simplicity of administration and great flexibility in the creation of new pages by the editorial teams.

A well-defined structure that also makes responsive integration on mobile easier.