[Surelutions offers website design and more in Chelsea, Michigan]

Surelutions offers Graphic Design, Website Design and Web Hosting Services.
Located in Chelsea, Michigan and serving clients locally and nationwide.

A Quick Lesson About Fonts

There are basic rules-of-thumb followed by good designers when choosing fonts. The guidelines below apply to any documents, with special notes about website design as well.

Use standard fonts for your primary content.

For websites, it is important to use standard fonts to ensure that your pages will render properly. In addition, familiar fonts are easy on the eyes for large blocks of text, making your content easier to read.

Use decorative fonts sparingly.

Using funky and fun fonts is a great way to add interest to your design, but can be a big turn off if there is too much of it. If want to use a nifty new font you found, use it sparingly for areas like titles, drop caps, or pulled quotes.

Understand the difference between serif and sans-serif fonts.

A sans-serif font is one without "feet" on it. Compare:

T(Arial, a sans serif font)
vs. T (Times, a serif font)

For websites, sans serif fonts such as Arial or Verdana are commonly used. A computer screen displays fonts at a lower resolution than printed material. At small sizes those little "feet" may disappear, making your page to read. For printed material, it's often simply a matter of preference.

If your text isn't in a narrow column, don't justify it.

Don't justify text unless you are designing a document with narrow columns, such as a newsletter or newspaper. It often gives your sentences awkward spacing issues and is more distracting than attractive.

Use headings and subheadings to improve readability.

Subheadings help organize your content. This is extremely important on web sites, because users do not read your text, they scan it. Organizing it with headings, subheadings and other structural cues, help guide your reader along.

Don't use ALL CAPS for sentences.

In the online world, using all caps is considered "yelling" and may offend people. In addition, it's hard to read. People can read text more quickly if it has a variety of shapes to help the eye along.

FOR EXAMPLE, THIS SENTENCE IS WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS AND IS DIFFICULT FOR PEOPLE TO READ BECAUSE ALL THE LETTERS ARE BASICALLY THE SAME SHAPE AND SIZE.

With this in mind, all caps can be very effective in drawing your attention to something on the page. As with the attributes listed below, a little goes a long way.

Use bold, italics and underlining wisely.

Similar to the tip above, use bold and italics sparingly. Whatever you do, don't use all caps, bold and italics at the same time.

  • Bold is very useful in headings, definitions listings, etc. On this page, it helps the reader scan the page for the main points.
  • Italics is used to emphasize a word, or for the titles of books or CDs. Note that italics is used instead of quotes. (Example: The Color Purple was written by Alice Walker.)
  • DO NOT FORMAT YOUR TEXT LIKE THIS. Using ALL CAPS, bold and italics at the same time is amateurish and unnecessary.
  • Underlining - On web pages, underlining is used to indicate a link. (Did you try to click on it?) It is confusing to people if you use in any other instance. In print material, it can be used to provide definitions, or to indicate a title, but italics is generally preferred.

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