design & marketing blog

A common request we get from clients is that their Website be developed using a specific font (or typeface). Unfortunately the answer is usually “no” . . . in Web publishing there is a very very small set of font choices available for text rendering.

Unlike print publishing, soft-copy (digital based) publishing relies on the recipient of a document to have the same font installed on their system as the designer. If the recipient’s system does not, a substitute font will be used that will cause the document to appear quite different from what the designer intended.

You likely have received a PowerPoint or Word document which when opened had strange spaces, line breaks and page breaks. More than likely, this document looked much better when put together, but the author failed to embed the fonts before sending off the document to your system.

Embedding a font means including the font files within the Word document (or whatever) thus allowing the recipient’s to view your publication with its intended fonts, even if they don’t happen to have those fonts installed on their system.

No embedded fonts for webpages

While embedding fonts is a great solution for insuring design integrity when emailing Word, PowerPoint and Adobe Acrobat documents, it’s unfortunately not an option for HTML coded Webpages. This means that while there are estimated to be up to 100,000 digital fonts (see: http://www.microsoft.com/typography/links/ ) there are only a handful of fonts suitable for body text; fonts that are common to 90%+ of all PC’s and Mac’s in the world. My short list of those typefaces is below:

Windows font name / Mac font name

• Arial / Helvetica
• Trebuchet MS / Helvetica
• Verdana / Verdana
• Georgia / Georgia

The good news is that deciding which font to use for your Website body text is going to be easier than you thought.

The case for Helvetica (or Arial for Windows)

The Arial / Helvetica combo of typefaces is the de facto standard for professional Web presentation. Helvetica is an icon of contemporary design that is synonymous with professionalism. It’s an undisputed fact that a majority of professional copy is presented in Helvetica typeface (or a close variation). Look at any major magazine, sign, or advertisement; the publications of design leaders like Apple and the New York Design Center; the productions of polished professional brands like Crate and Barrel, Target, Macy’s, or Nike . . . Helvetica is used in their marketing material a majority of the the time. Helvetica is so prevelenat within marketing, it recently became the subject of it’s own full length film.

Helvetica is a great typeface because it so efficiently achieves the goal of graphic design. It provides an unpretentious backdrop of credibility to your unique value message without drawing attention to itself (and thus drawing attention away from your message). Helvetica provides a great “off white” canvas on which your message can be communicated professionally and concisely.

Selectively using other typefaces as graphic elements within your Webpage

While there are only a few font choices for body text, we can selectively create text using other fonts by converting that text to a graphic and then embedding that text as a graphic in a Webpage. With a neutral body font like Helvetica, the “feel” of the featured graphic font is conveyed quite well. For example we can set the font face of headers, menu-items, front page “ads” or call-out text sections in a different typeface.

I hesitate to say that “any” font can be included with this method into a Webpage. One of the tell-tale signs of amateur design is the inclusion of too many fonts of differing styles. This is fine for personal home pages, Facebook or cottage industry newsletters but if our goal is producing professional grade best-practice publications the rule of thumb is to use as few typefaces as possible and then use those variations sparingly.

Only choose to use an alternate typeface set as graphics if you can articulate the reason this addition would add value to your design and increase the clarity of your value proposition. Graphic rendered typfaces have some downsides, namely they add to the load time of your page and the text within the graphics is not indexed by search engines.

In conclusion

Be aware that unlike other types of publishing, you really don’t have much a of font choice when it comes to the body text of your Website. Unless there is a compelling reason, Helvetica / Arial should be your default choice. The other options listed earlier (Trebuchet, Verdana and Georgia) are also viable options.

Any typeface can be converted to a graphic and included within your Webpage, however this method should be used with caution and in consultation with a professional designer.  If you have questions or comments on this article, please don’t hesitate to share them.