Making Font Choices

As you know by now, the font you choose to display content with - regardless of whether this is for the web, a book, or advertisement - can have great effects on the reception of that content.

Sometimes a font is chosen simply in order to be clear, and sometimes it is part of an entire branding strategy. Regardless the reason, it is important to understand how fonts are selected and applied for websites, as well as how the client’s computer actually displays them.

One thing you will notice from these various resources is a general guidance to use “serif” fonts for print, and “sans-serif” fonts for displays. Honestly, as displays continue to become better and strain the eyes less in general, this rule of thumb no longer holds true.

It is common practice to combine types; for example, a sans-serif font for headings, and the easier-read serif font for body content, but again, an argument can be made for the reverse: