Why Fonts Are Boring (Part I)

You may have noticed that there is a same-i-ness to many web sites and pages. Much of this is a good thing. How rough would it be if all cars did not have the steering wheel, brakes and so on all in the same place? So having certain conventions makes your site much more comfy for users. That said, some of these conventions are more like constraints that came out of the dawn of the vast Interweb. And fonts are one such limitation.

The fact is that the vast majority of all web sites use the same three or four fonts for the simple reason that the original browsers only supported three or four fonts. The situation is changing now with the advent of HTML5, but the fact remains that you would do well to stick to the same ol’ same ol’ fonts unless your site absolutely requires a certain stylistic panache.

If you venture outside of the standard Arial, Times and so on, you run the risk of having your pages look really different on the various browsers.