Poll: Should font choice be dictated by customer preferences or the designer's?
Thursday January 17, 2008
Font size is also a big deal on Web pages. Many designers seem to prefer fonts that are extremely small, but many readers have poor vision. Perhaps a larger font size would be more appropriate even if it doesn't match the original vision for the site?
What do you think? Should font choice be more a customer-focused design decision or dictated by the design itself?
Comments
This is an interesting poll.
Often the choice may be dictated by existing brand constraints. In this case it is the customerwho will guide the choice of font and possibly the font sizes used. However if the chosen fonts work on print, but not on screen a sensible client will be lead by the designer’s knowledge and experience.
If there is no existing brand then most clients will be lead by thier designer. Therefore I would have added another option to the poll, “Customer, with the guidance of the designer”, since it’s always the customer that makes the final approval of any proposed design made by thier web / graphic designer.
Once again Jennifer has come up with an interesting topic for both professional and amateur web designers!
I went with 100% designer but my reason for this may differ slightly.
I personally believe a good designer and good being the primary word here, should have the expertise and knowledge needed to choose the right font and size for the text on the site.
Generally speaking you should stick to four fonts. Tahoma, Arial, Times New Roman and Verdana. As for size I tend to not stray far from 0.85em.
I’d say this should be obvious but countless sites prove to me every day that some people just plain don’t know how to design.
There are actually a few more fonts that 4 that you can use safely across browsers and platforms.
I found this site a while ago and have found it very useful, particularly with clients who want a bizarre font…
Common fonts to all versions of Windows & Mac equivalents
I hope others find this useful
I was under the impression that the viewer could override the designer’s css. Don’t know the state of this.
http://searchsoa.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid26_gci211749,00.html
“In general, the Web page creator’s style sheet takes precedence, but it’s recommended that browsers provide ways for the viewer to override the style attributes in some respects.”
I would say that this poll needs an additional option that says “Target Audience Decides”. If you’re designing for yourself or your client then you’re missing the bigger picture.
I realize there is a limited quantity of fonts that will display across all browsers, but you can change the overall feel of a site by changing fonts you use in graphics.
Luther: Yes, viewers can override the font choices of the developer. Most browsers have that right in the options, but you can also use a user style sheet to force all sorts of things to be in the style you want (rather than that of the designer). Like, I used to always underline links - even if the designer removed the underlines. It drove my co-workers crazy, as they’d sit behind me and see our site in my browser and say “hey! why are all the links underlined!?!” Cracked me up!
Keith: I don’t claim to be comprehensive, but I have a list of Standard Fonts on Windows and Macintosh as well. Plus a comparison chart that shows these fonts in screen shots from a Macintosh and Windows computer.
Lance: I think you mis-understood the point of the question. By customer I meant site customer or the person reading it (you called it audience). I should have made that clearer. When I speak of customer-centered design, I’m always talking about the customer to the page - not any client requesting the page be made.
Thanks Jennifer, another useful couple of pages bookmarked