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Email Typography: Font Size, Line Height, and Readability

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Your email is mostly text — treat it that way

Strip away the images, the buttons, and the logo, and what’s left in most emails is text. Headings, paragraphs, bullet lists, captions, footer fine print. Typography is the single biggest factor in whether that text reads well or falls flat — and yet it’s often the last thing email builders think about.

Good typography is invisible. The reader doesn’t notice the font size or the line height; they just read smoothly and understand the message. Bad typography is the opposite: the reader notices the effort it takes to get through a paragraph, and many of them give up before they finish.

What email typography actually is

Typography in email comes down to a small set of choices:

  • Font family — the typeface itself (covered in Email Fonts).
  • Font size — how large the text is, measured in pixels. Body text, headings, and captions each need their own size.
  • Line height — the vertical space between lines of text. Tight line height crams lines together; loose line height spreads them apart. Both extremes hurt readability.
  • Font weight — how bold or light the text appears. Weight creates hierarchy: bolder for headings, regular for body, lighter or smaller for secondary text.
  • Letter spacing — the horizontal space between characters. Slightly loosening letter spacing on headings can improve readability; tightening it too much on body text hurts it.
  • Paragraph spacing — the space between paragraphs. Enough space helps the reader scan; too much fragments the reading flow.

These choices work together. A well-sized font with tight line height and no paragraph spacing is still hard to read. A slightly smaller font with generous line height and clear paragraph breaks can read beautifully.

Why it matters

  • Readability drives engagement. If readers can’t comfortably scan your email, they don’t click. Typography is the difference between a skim-friendly email and a wall of text.
  • Mobile magnifies every mistake. On a phone screen, a 12px font is unreadable, tight line height is suffocating, and long paragraphs look like a solid block. What’s slightly uncomfortable on desktop becomes impossible on mobile.
  • Hierarchy guides attention. Without clear size and weight differences between headings and body text, the reader doesn’t know where to look first. Typography is how you signal “start here, then read this, then act on that.”
  • Consistency builds recognition. When every email uses the same type scale — the same heading size, the same body size, the same line height — your emails become instantly recognizable. Inconsistent typography makes every email feel like it came from a different sender.

How to set up email typography

  1. Set a comfortable body size. Use 16px for body text as a default. Never go below 14px. If your audience skews older or is mostly mobile, 16px is the minimum, not the maximum.
  2. Create a clear size hierarchy. Headings should be visibly larger than body text — at least 1.3x. Sub-headings sit between body and main heading. Captions and fine print go smaller, but never below 12px.
  3. Set line height to 1.4–1.6 for body text. This gives each line enough breathing room that the eye can track from the end of one line to the start of the next without effort. For headings, tighter line height (1.2–1.3) is fine because headings are shorter.
  4. Limit your type scale. Use no more than 4–5 distinct sizes: one for main headings, one for sub-headings, one for body, one for captions/fine print. More sizes create visual noise.
  5. Limit your font families. One font for body, optionally one for headings. Two fonts maximum. Every additional font adds visual complexity and increases the chance of a font swap looking wrong.
  6. Use paragraph spacing, not just line breaks. A margin between paragraphs creates visual structure that helps the reader scan. Don’t rely on empty lines (which collapse inconsistently across clients).
  7. Left-align body text. Centered body text is harder to read because each line starts at a different position. Reserve center alignment for short elements like headings or calls to action.

Common mistakes

  • Body text too small. 12px or 13px body text is a holdover from print design. On mobile screens, it’s unreadable without zooming.
  • No hierarchy. When headings, sub-headings, and body text are all similar sizes, the email reads as a flat block. Readers can’t find the important parts.
  • Tight line height. Line height of 1.2 on body text makes lines blur together. The eye loses its place between lines.
  • Too many fonts. Three or four font families in one email create visual chaos. Every font competes for attention.
  • Long paragraphs. A paragraph that fills the screen width and runs for 8 lines is a wall of text. Break it into 2–3 shorter paragraphs.
  • Justified text. Justified alignment creates irregular word spacing and “rivers” of white space. It looks awkward and reads poorly on narrow screens.

How to handle typography in Temway

Temway standardizes your typography through workspace branding. Set your default font family, heading sizes, and body text size once, and every email you build starts with those settings applied — so consistency is built in, not a manual effort.

Within each email, the text block gives you full control over font size, weight, line height, and spacing in the properties panel. You can override the defaults for individual blocks when a specific section needs different treatment, but the baseline is always your branded type scale.

Use custom fonts if you want headings in a distinctive typeface — Temway handles the fallback stack automatically so the web-safe backup looks good in clients that don’t support web fonts. Preview in Desktop and Mobile to check readability at both sizes, then export the HTML or push to your ESP when the typography reads right.

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