Comments on: Font Survey

By: Jon

Jon — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 13:26:01 +0000

Ah, yeah. At least you know I wasn’t job searching!

By: ajaswa

ajaswa — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 12:29:12 +0000

@Jon As far as Authenticjobs.com goes: On the home page there are few places what show the Georgia font, however take a look at a listing you’ll see its nearly everywhere.

By: Jon

Jon — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 17:31:46 +0000

Wow! I’m really impressed with the degree of research. I would suggest though, that authenticjobs.com maybe should be better listed with the san-serif fonts, as the body text is overridden and what you see on the screen is mostly sans-serif.

I agree with Lucien about the de facto standard of serif for print and san-serif for screen. SS is definitely easier to read at a small font size on screen than serif.

I was surprised that so many designers use serif fonts… Even Andy Rutledge. Interesting. Not surprised that Georgia was more common since it was created specifically to be more legible (with a taller x-height) than Times New Roman.

Something that might be interesting for future research would be how many sites use a serif for headings and sans-serif for body text (and vice-versa) compared to how many are consistently serif or sans-serif.

Personally, I feel the expressiveness of serif fonts only becomes visible on screen at larger sizes, e.g. 20px, etc. when the contrast between thick and thin strokes is apparent. Hence, I often use serifs for headings, but never for body text.

By: lucien frelin

lucien frelin — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:49:29 +0000

I think usage is the key to your learnings. I know for a fact the reason “serifs” are widely used in traditional print is to guide the reader through the text, making the body text easier to read. I’m willing to say the same reasoning applies to web fonts. Thus, a sans-serif font is more legible on a computer screen. I think sans serif is a little more acceptable in print in Europe tho. But not more common than the serif. I would also lend your results to trends and majority usage on the web. Not to mention 99% of sites use sans serif fonts for their body text and probably 99% body text in print in serif. It’s just easier to read and the standard way to do it. Unless you’re trying to be artsy of course.

By: ajaswa

ajaswa — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 20:15:40 +0000

@Histrel Yes a lot of studies have been done about readability, Jeff Atwood has a great one over at coding horror. I wasn’t really doing of study of how readable fonts were but rather their usage.

It seems that most general use sites use sans-serif and sites that are made by great web designers (people who know a lot about typography) use serif fonts. That is something I’m planning on getting into later in this project though.

By: Histrel

Histrel — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 20:04:56 +0000

According to an article I read ages ago the Verdana font is the best one to use for readability on websites.may have been on Jacob Neilson’s site but not sure…

By: Zach

Zach — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:34:26 +0000

Interesting. Not very many sans-serif fonts. It would be interesting to compare these stats with just stats on headings. Of course sometimes headings are images (so the site can use fancy fonts), but I wonder if there is a higher percentage of sans-serif in headings than in body text.