Why Fonts Are Boring (Part II)

Now as I said in my last post, there are newer technologies which expand the universe of fonts. These are javascript libraries which grab fonts from the cloud. Some are free (Google.) And some are paid subscriptions of a few dollars a month from companies like Adobe. Guess which tend to look nicer? But since they are cloud-based, there are two small risks: First, that your site will render a bit more slowly since each page needs to make an extra trip to the cloud to get the fonts. Second, if the cloud server goes down, you got no fonts. Both these are light risks (when was the last time Google went dark, right?)

A much larger risk, in my mind, is what I call ‘Desktop Publisher Syndrome’. If you’re old enough to remember when laser printers first came out, you can recall a mountain of really crappy DIY ‘Newsletters’. At first, people tend to go nuts with eye candy and cloud-based fonts are no different. One good thing about limiting oneself to the boring standard fonts is that it enforces some restraint.

So it’s up to you. For literally 90% of sites, my advice is to stick with the same ol’ boring fonts. Users are familiar with them, you can count on the way they’ll render and plenty of great looking sites have been and will continue to be made with Arial and Times. But if you have a site that you want to say something different and you understand the small risks of using cloud-based fonts? The right font can make all the difference.

As in so many things: Choose the proper tool and apply good taste. Easy, no? 😀