Web Safe Typefaces

There are really not a lot of options to chose from when selecting a typeface for your site. In fact there are 6 fonts that you could consider safe to use, fonts that are installed by default on the majority of computers since the late 90’s.

Arial

Arial is a good sans-serif typeface, and though it’s no Helvetica, Arial is appropriate for a variety of applications and is designed for screen display. While it might seem dull at times, a little care to the presentation and spacing of Arial can make it seem fresh again.

Verdana

Verdana is a humanist sans-serif typeface with a large x-height, wide proportions, and large counters designed for being read on screens at small sizes. Verdana is the largest appearing typeface out of the sans-serif web safe fonts because of this as well, and has been named the catalyst in the trend reducing font sizes.

Trebuchet

Trebuchet is a good sans-serif web font, however not as desirable as other sans-serif’s. It’s much less common on non Microsoft systems, and has more flare to it then other typefaces like it. It is also the default typeface for title bars in Windows XP.

Comic Sans

Do not use.

Georgia

Georgia is a transitional serif typeface and shares similarities with Times New Roman. However Georgia has a larger x-height, wider and flatter serifs designed for computer screen readability.

Times New Roman

The all too common serifed font seen across the internet long before anyone thought of typography online. But Times unfortunately remains poorly used by many, despite its ability to be quite creative given the right attention in headline usage.

Courier New

Courier is a mono-spaced slab serif typeface designed to look like typewriter letters. It’s not seen much use lately, with the U.S. State Department replacing it as their standard typeface in 2004 (with Times New Roman). Microsoft intends to replace it with one of it’s new Vista typefaces Consolas as well.

And that’s not all. Microsoft in releasing Vista and Office 2007 have released a new set of typefaces that may one day be ubiquitus enough to consider web safe. Cambria replaces Georgia, Calibri is the new Arial, Corbel and Candara can replace Verdana, Consolas takes care of Courier New as mentioned earlier, and new commer Palatino

The best way to specify typefaces for body or copy is to use the font-family property in CSS and specify the name of the typeface you want as well as a generic family name such as sans-serif, serif, mono-space, or cursive. This prevents your design from getting too out of hand when someone does not have these fonts installed on their system for whatever reason.