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Holy Fonts Batman!

By Ron | January 22, 2008

If you look in your style.css it will most likely show several fonts listed. Here is what I mean:

body { font-family: Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, Sans-Serif;
}

Or in a source code of a non css html website you might see:

< FONT FACE="Trebuchet MS, arial, verdana" >“> Text Text < /FONT >

Notice that I have three font faces listed each with a comma in between. Following that format, you can suggest numerous font faces in descending order of importance. When the page loads, the browser checks to see if the visitors computer has the first font face listed. If the font face is on the computer, it displays. If not, the browser attempts to find the second font face listed. If it is not there either, then the third font listed is displayed.

fonts.jpg You should test these one by one yourself to see what they do to your styling layout. Not all theme designers test these and they can cause major problems with your blog themes design. For the most part, the fonts listed will work together, but a couple of themes I have downloaded the fonts listed were not even in the same font family.

In the picture at the right you’ll notice each font is sized 10, but they all are different actual sizes and widths. These fonts are of different font families and were chosen just to demonstrate the differences.

In a study conducted by the Department of Psychology at the Wichita State University, the department surveyed two groups of students about the different characteristics of 20 different fonts.

“The purpose of this study was to determine whether or not participants consistently attribute personality traits to a variety of fonts presented onscreen. We also attempted to determine if participants associate fonts with particular onscreen uses. “

This study is interesting and shows the suggested use of the different fonts tested. You can access the study below.

http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/usabilitynews/81/PersonalityofFonts.htm

Fonts of the Sans Serif family were preferred for website text, email and for online magazines. While the top 3 individual fonts picked for website text were TNR, Calibri and Cambria.

A word of warning though Calibri and Cambria are Microsoft fonts and unless your visitors have Microsoft Office installed or a new computer those fonts are probably not on their computers.

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