Yo, beware of choosing the wrong typography for your blog as a bad decision might cause your results to suck. I’m serious. It’s simply not okay to serve your users a font-face that doesn’t please their eyes. No discussions needed.
You have to think about that at least once or you are going to let a good chance go for the better to improve statistics and user responses! You are now asking yourself how you can determine which font is the right one for your blog – I’ll help you out with that question. Listen up!
First of all: Forget about the term “perfect font” – there is no such thing. Typography is a huge thing in itself and I’m told it to be very difficult. In fact I proved myself the contrary. I experimented with different font-faces and (naturally) achieved different results.
Arial – Choose this font to look like the rest of us
When I started publishing on the web I felt “wired” and it was a great feeling. But, alas, little did I know about typography. I stumbled upon a few articles 1, 2, 3 and read through them. Then I had changed my mind: Arial was going to be buried alife. In fact I’m only using Arial on websites that have to look like any other site.
Sometimes this Helvetica derivate just fits perfectly for my audience. That is because many people are used to (and by) known and widespread font-faces. It has to do with trust and nostalgy – both are relative terms and should be replaced with outstanding designs which force your users to just “forget” about their feelings they encountered elsewhere.
Create a new feeling. An unique feeling. Arial is not going to help you with that task…
Courier New – Pick that font to cry out loud
Damn, this is ugly. For flowing text it is okay in some way. But I feel with you right now as you are whining while you watch my example picture below. PS: It’s obviously not the right choice for any blogger to pick Courier New as a typeface for headlines. No discussions please.
If the rare case applies to your mood of choosing Courier New as the “perfect font” (which does not exist) you might need some help. Seriously: Do not use this font unless you are willingly shouting at your visitors: “I don’t have a clue, please go away. Don’t visit my blog. Just go.”
Georgia – Good font for good websites
WOW! I love Georgia. The very first version of ilovethesis.com ran with Georgia. In fact many of my blogs & websites are 100% Georgia. A smooth and simple yet extravagant font for those of you who dare to break the rules.
Times New Roman – Are you The NY Times? So…
Cool font though. I like Times New Roman. It’s clear-cut and stonecold. Just perfect for anybody who wants to publish a newspaper. Are you going to publish a newspaper? Or are you just too ignorant to realize the most obvious fact about Times New Roman?
It’s a cool font, isn’t it? But do you really want to feature this masterpiece of typography on your own blog? If so I beg you to have a closer look at Georgia again. And again. And then once again…
Trebuchet MS – Clear font for special design purposes
“Oops, I did it again, I played with your heart…” – Before I switched ilovethesis.com to Trebuchet MS I was using Georgia and it felt wrong. I cannot explain why. I just knew I had to pick another font to perform some true Thesis blog magic.
As you can see while glimpsing around this site I did a good job with Trebuchet. It’s used rarely and in my opinion it is the best alternative to the famous “Apple font” which is on their precious website: Lucida. I would switch to Lucida if it was as widespread as I am praying…
Verdana – Verdana is a cool font for everybody
Verdana is made for screens. Verdana is made for monitors. Verdana is 100% digital. Yeah, I agree. Verdana is nice and fluffy when it comes to tiny text. I often use Verdana for footnotes or descriptive text for images. But as it becomes uglier the bigger it gets I try to avoid using it for long passages of text.
Nothing more to say about Verdana. If you are unsure you can pick this font to make your readers happy. But beware: Verdana is widespread and your website and/or blog might look boring while it’s driven by Verdana. (As I said it is the same with Arial)
Bottom line
Okay folks. I hear some whining because I did not make in-depth descriptions for you to copy. That is because all the resources are out there. And I cannot stop me from saying: “There is NO perfect font.”
If you are just beginning making up thoughts of how your website is perceived by your users you should try different fonts and use a tool like Google Analytics to see whether changing the primary font has any (bad) effects.
Attention: All of my judgement is far from being professional. I did not write this post for professionals either. It’s for Thesis users who do not know where to start. As Chris Pearson implemented a huge variety of fonts to choose from actually choosing the “right one” might be very mind-boggling. I repeat: This is not a professional point of view. That would be boring and not help you with your decisions. You could easily head for another resource to get the stuff on a silver plate but, you know, I like to experience things.
You should not stop experiencing things for yourself. Do not live other people’s lives. This is still a message of pure truth if a “professional” tells you otherwise. Listen carefully and but do what you want ;-)
PS: A nice start would perhaps be Wikipedia with Core fonts for the Web. Have fun!
