Monday, December 01, 2008
Designing a great website that works! (Part 6)
Websites don’t need any specific font, but the font should be found in the majority of computers. Few of the most widely used website fonts are, Arial, Arial Black, Comic Sans, Courier New, Georgia, Impact, Lucida Console, Times New Roman and Verdana. These are the fonts which are found in almost all machines, so these can easily show up on maximum machines in the world.
In particular, it is important to choose fonts for your website based on the following criteria:
· The font should be easy to read on the computer screen;
· The font should fit well with the character of the website; and
· The font should be widely available on the most popular web browsers and computer operating
systems.
The most popular and web friendly fonts include (Note: each font description below has been written the font described - each in size 12 pt, so you can see what each font actually looks like and compare then):
· Arial – The Arial font is widely available. It is the default font used by the Windows operating
system, and has been as far back as Windows 3.1. Arial does have a number of readability
issues, however, especially in smaller sizes, where it may become too narrow and the spacing
between the characters can appear too small.
· Times New Roman – Times New Roman is also very widely available and it is one of the most
commonly used of all fonts. Times New Roman is the default font for many web browsers and
it is highly readable at sizes of 12 pt and higher.
· Verdana – Verdana is another widely available font and is one of the easiest of all fonts to read
on the web. Verdana continues to be the preferred font for many websites and is typically
considered to be among the clearest fonts for on screen viewing, even in smaller font sizes.
· Georgia – The Georgia font was introduced when the need for an easier to read serif font
became apparent and it does have very good on screen readability.
Resources to assist the selection of website fonts
Being able to select the right font can make the difference between an ordinary web page design and a really attractive one. It's not hard or expensive to find the typeface that's right for your design. Here are my recommendations for font resources.
· http://www.urbanfonts.com/ - Urbanfonts has a manageable selection of good fonts organised
in useful categories with good samples. The site also has articles giving advice on selecting fonts
· The Font Thing - This is a free software program which at the time of this document could be
downloaded with this link http://www.download.com/3000-20-10038296.html (Note: if this
link is no longer live when you read this just find another link by typing ‘The Font thing’ into
google).
This software allows you to type in some text and then browse what that text will look like in
all the fonts that are installed on your PC. Font Thing works on versions of Windows from
Win95 onwards - but not on Mac/Linux.
In the next post I will provide more tips important in an website area that causes much pain and frustration – pictures & images.
As always, wishing you every success for your business.
Kev Richardson
http://www.biztoolz.com.au/
Labels: marketing on internet
