Joy Of Code - Web Design Training and Consulting
Joy Gems Newsletter

The FONTain Of Youth

By Bud Kraus
bud@joyofcode.com
Joy Of Code
Creator And Instructor

v4 i3
Originally Published: February 7, 2008

I hear all the time from people who publish content online (and isn't that everybody these days?) that there is a dearth of fonts available to use for web page design.

Need a sans-serif font? What'll it be? Arial or Verdana - again? Feel like a serif font might work? Times New Roman or Georgia - again? I can count on my two little hands the font types used in probably 95% of all web pages. Same old, same old.

That's all we see. Just a handful of fonts that are "safe" to use for the web. (Maybe they're a little too safe, but I'll save that opinion for another JG.)

So, I sought out a few new choices that web designers, content creators, and the rest of us can make when it comes to font. I bumped into something called "Vista Fonts." They come with Windows newest operating system, but I hear Apple is going to license their use as well.

Here are the new fonts, all written in the Key Of C (they all begin with the letter C). Since you may not have these fonts installed on your computer, they may not render correctly on your screen. You can see them on Microsoft's page which has an image of each font in addition to detailing the purpose and use of each one of them.

New Sans-serif Fonts

Calibri is a warm and soft font due the roundness of its characters. Because of its proportions you can get a big impact in tightly set lines of large and small text.

Candara makes for a lively, friendly, and readable copy.

Corbel's soft, flowing curves gives it a clean look with a wide range of uses at many sizes.

New Serif Fonts

Constantia's small x-height and long extenders makes it ideal for book publishing.

Cambria is good for screen reading and small sized printing. Its got nice spacing and proportion. Looks to be a winner!!

New Monospace Font

Consolas is a monospace font meaning all characters have the same width like the way it was in the typewriter era. It can be used in business correspondence or to style computer code.

Good news! You don't need to have Windows Vista to get these fonts. Simply install or upgrade to PowerPoint Viewer 2007 and that will automatically give you the fonts.

Make absolutely sure that when you use any of these you put a fallback(generic) font in your CSS, as in the following for all paragraphs of a page:

p
{font-family:cambria, times, serif;}

In the event the Cambria font is not in the user's operating system, the browser will display the Times font. If the Times font is not around, then the browser will choose any available serif font just to be sure.