Fonts on the web: follow up
Clients often ask if the font from their logo or header can be used elsewhere on the site—in headlines, navigation, etc. Design considerations aside, there are technical reasons why this often isn’t possible.
Your web browser, similar to other software programs, must be able to access a font on your computer in order for it to display text in that font. This limits the fonts available for use on the web to those that are common across a variety of operating systems, which is why text on the web is usually set in Helvetica, Arial, Times, Georgia, etc.—these fonts are installed on a high percentage of consumer computers. Web designers look at tables like these , and statistics like these, to determine what fonts are safe to use. The fancy type in a logo (and sometimes navigation) is actually an image, not text at all. This allows you to use any font you like, but complicates updating. As an example, here is a line of text set in “Kolo”:
This is a fancy font.
It should look like this:
Some text set in Kolo Regular
But, if you don’t have Kolo Regular installed on your computer, it will be set in Times or Arial instead.
Here are some further articles about the basics of typography on the web:
- Opera’s primer on web typography – has visual samples of some good font options
- Stats on most common fonts
- Chart of fonts installed with OS’s and software
- Article on font embedding