Web Typography

Serif and sans serif fonts

Serifs are the tails on the letters Serif leads the eye from letter to letter At large font sizes, the serifs get too big

Sans serif fonts

Note varying line weights on Optima

Serif fonts

Display fonts

Factors on font choice

Low monitor resolution makes serifs too big and interfere with letter form

Image on designer PC

Restrictions on font choices

Must be resident on the client PCFonts always come from the machine with the browser.

The fonts on the designer’s PC only display on that PC (or others with the fonts installed)

What would this mean in a corporate environment with centralized PC control?

Setting web fonts

Fonts are in groups– font-family: Times New Roman", Georgia,

Times, serif – font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif

What does putting fonts into groups mean?

Readability and legibility

Readability = reading passagesLegibility = distinguishing individual letters

x-height is major factor Georgia and Verdana were designed for the

screen

Georgia & Verdana

Font size and monitor

Fonts changes based on monitor settings You have no control over either monitor

resolution or window size

CNN at 800x 600.jpg

CNN at 1024 x 768

CNN at 1280 x 1024

End