Fonts

Font type is an often overlooked part of web design but has lasting implications if not well thought out beforehand. Unfortunately, most webmasters don’t have the necessary graphic design knowledge to properly choose font types and they believe that all letters were created equal. They believe the following all do the same thing.

This does the same as
This which does the same as
This which is also the same as
This However, isn’t the case

There has been a lot of research put into fonts. Some make the eyes ‘wear out” or “get tired” quicker. Others are more pleasing the eye. Some look good on paper others look better in an online medium. Some fonts look traditional, others look modern. Some look warm and friendly, others look cool. We will now look at what different fonts do and how to use them in your website.

Serif or Sans-serif

You may or may not have heard the term before “serif” or “sans-serif”. However, understanding the “serifs” role in typography is very important element in web design for real estate websites. A “serif” font is a font that has small features that help guide the eye from one character to the next. These small features are known as “serifs” and are commonly found in most newspaper writing. Times new roman is an example of a serif font. See an example of Times New Roman below.

This is an example of a serif font. Notice the extra guides attached to each character.

You can see the Serifs in the larger font below

Notice the serifs in this font. The serifs are the little decorations attached to each character.

A sans-serif font (simply meaning “without-serif” in French), means without the small extra details that a serif font has. Below is an example of sans-serif text

Here is an example of sans-serifs text. Notice the lack of serifs in the Arial font.

Again you can more easily see the lack of serifs if the font is blown up

Notice the lack of serifs in this font

In the past using traditional media (i.e. Newspapers) it was established that serifs helped guide the eye along large blocks of texts and san-serifs were generally used only for headlines. However, computer screens provide a higher resolution rendering and therefore have paved the way for sans-serifs to be the de facto web font used by many webmasters today.

Now that you know the difference you should know that when serifs where designed (back in the 20’s), they were designed for print. That is why you rarely see some of the old serif fonts such as the Times New Roman font on any website that understand design. This is because although Times New Roman is a superior font on paper, Georgia is a better serifs font for the computer screen and in fact was designed for that purpose.

This is an example of the font Georgia which looks great on a computer screen

This is an example of the font Times New Roman. Notice it’s a little less appealing and a little more difficult to read (especially for long online paragraphs)

Looking at the above example’s only gives you a small glimpse into the importance of typography. However, countless studies have been done reinforcing the same conclusions; that certain font types tire the eyes at different speeds. Your goal is a webmaster is to ensure your fonts are easy to read and understand so your site visitors take the time to read what you have to say.

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