Comments on: Which Font is Best for Blogging?

By: Shad Bolling

Shad Bolling — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 08:39:39 +0000

I’ve heard from many of my web design friends that Verdana has fallen out of favor among most designers. The very reason that makes Verdana appealing to old-school internet folk causes headaches in design departments nowadays — especially with easily resizable, modern browsers. Verdana was designed to be “a little bigger to the eye” at smaller font sizes, which really helped back when browsers didn’t let you resize on the fly; however, modern browsers are not only easily resized (Ctrl+/-), but also allow the user to specify the desired “default” font they want to view web pages (in other words, we can over-ride the font choice and size a particular web site has). Coupled with those factors, most web designers use other fonts that aren’t “artifcially” bigger.

By: Elizabeth

Elizabeth — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 23:27:23 +0000

I like to change my font from post to post, but I am most drawn to fonts that are sans serif, Arial, Verdana, Trebuchet, Comic…

By: CK

CK — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:19:01 +0000

I tried an assortment of fonts for my blog before settling down to the default blogger font – Times New Roman ?

When you highlight a quotation or make it bold, is it considered shouting ?

By: @balootisme

@balootisme — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 13:54:39 +0000

im usually use Arial text font; size 12px for my blog at balootisme.com

my dating blog is using verdana size 14px; quite big and its easy-reading. my dating blog is reached by baby boomers too.

By: Rapidshare Bloggers

Rapidshare Bloggers — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 07:53:14 +0000

Why Georgia, why ?
I prefer Tahoma, Verdana and good ol New Times Roman

By: Dmitri

Dmitri — Thu, 31 May 2007 11:39:31 +0000

I think the best solution is to embed the font you want into your blog (thus alienating Firefox users). I’d go for something like Myriad.

By: kyle

kyle — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 03:19:14 +0000

My feeling is that sans-serifs are fine in the fast food information environ of blogs & other news sites. There’s not much real risk of fatiguing your readers, as most are only consuming in bite-sized articles and posts anyway.

Would I want to read an entire PDF manual or a printed book in a sans-serif? HELL NO!

That would be asking for eye strain. Sure, we’re all accustomed to reading sans-serifs at this point, but there’s a difference between being accustomed and being fundamentally comfortable. I’m “accustomed” to running short distances, regularly even, but I would be severely uncomfortable doing it for 26.4 miles (marathon distance).

By: David Jackmanson

David Jackmanson — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 12:54:08 +0000

I worked in classified ads for 2 1/2 years and for a long time I would have automatically agreed that you should always use a serif typeface, no matter what.

When I was deciding what to use on my blog, I decided that I really did want the clean lines of a sans-serif typeface, so I use Trebuchet MS.

However, it’s 12 points – huge compared to many blogs. I think text on a blog should be large.

You have to get the attention-challenged Sesame Street/MTV generation (of which I am a proud member) to pay attention to you if you want to succeed in blogging, so you need to make things easy for them. And it’s not as if you have to pay more for the space, like a book or newspaper publisher has to.

My rough vision for the visual design of my blog is to make it as easy to read as one of the old style UK Labour-supporting tabloids, such as the Daily Mirror.

By: Alfred Reinold Baudisch

Alfred Reinold Baudisch — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 17:49:40 +0000

@myMacBUZZ very thanks for your reply and site. I needed some kind of info like this site.

Regards.

By: dave

dave — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 15:45:48 +0000

the font here is the worst part of the site. sorry darren.

By: Grayson De Ritis

Grayson De Ritis — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 14:55:14 +0000

Verdana for the win =)

By: George

George — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 14:15:53 +0000

I user Verdana and Arial on most of my sites. I think they are easiest to read. Black on white text is also easiest for me to read. I have some minor vision problems (retinopathy) and some sites that are too hard for me to read, I avoid forever. Usually, it’s sites that use a light font on a dark background that are the most difficult for me to read.

In theory, using em or pt instead of px is best for accesibility, but sometimes it is difficult to make the site look good when you increase the font size in the browser or use larger fonts as your default screen property. In fact, a lot of blogs that use em looked messed up when I switch my display properties to large fonts or an even bigger custom font size.

If you use em or pt instead of px then you should test it a lot.

By: Eduardo Maio

Eduardo Maio — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 14:06:50 +0000

I normally use Verdana and Tahoma. I think Verdana is one of the best fonts for text in websites, even on paper I prefer Verdana to Arial.

By: gary

gary — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 13:14:14 +0000

the other thing to think about in relation to type is colours. with my current theme, i have been using a black background with a very light, almost white text. most people like the look, but i have had some readers comment that they find this colour difficult to read. in the next version of the garage we will be using black of white for the text area, as this seems to be more acceptable for most people.

By: John Doe

John Doe — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 10:47:06 +0000

Considering that fonts should be sans-serif, crossplatform and 3 in a CSS, there’s isn’t much choice.

By: myMacBUZZ

myMacBUZZ — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 08:31:13 +0000

@Alfred Reinold Baudisch – using ems when sizing fonts is better than pixels because of increased accessibility. With em-sized fonts, users can increase or decrease the website’s text size. This is especially important for IE users because if the font size is specified in pixels, they won’t be able to resize the text.

Here’s a good article on how to use ems for size text: http://www.clagnut.com/blog/348/

By: Chuck

Chuck — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 06:24:20 +0000

I’m using Arial right now but have been thinking over the past few days that it needs a change. There’s just something about the plain arial font that seems so amateur to me. Maybe it’s because I used it in school papers.

By: J.D. @ Get Rich Slowly

J.D. @ Get Rich Slowly — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 02:19:35 +0000

I have to say, I’m much happier reading screen text with a serif font than a sans-serif font. I know that’s blasphemy in some circles, but sans-serif fonts give me a headache. They’re difficult to read.

By: Alfred Reinold Baudisch

Alfred Reinold Baudisch — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 01:05:23 +0000

Dale Cruse, why don’t use pixels?

Actually, I am developing & desining a big project, and I used px for fonts. What is the problem?

By: Dale Cruse

Dale Cruse — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 00:57:39 +0000

Folks, don’t use pixels for font heights. Use “ems.”