Small Business Websites

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Yes, and no. Fonts, type styles or text styles, usually look about the same on every website. I’ve heard it described as ‘boring’. But ‘boring’ has a purpose. When viewing a website, your computer can only show you what fonts it has installed on its hard drive. So, if the web designer of the site you’re viewing chose to put all the text in Papyrus and your computer doesn’t have Papyrus, you’ll see a substitution font.

Substitution fonts can be tricky as most sites are laid out around photos and graphics, with the size of the text being a major factor. A 12 point font in Papyrus is a much different size than 12 point Arial in both height and width. If your computer substitutes the font, it can dramatically affect the layout of the web page, making it confusing and lacking the flow it originally had. To avoid font substitution issues, webmasters use a standard group of fonts that almost every single computer has, and even then they use a list. If your computer doesn’t have the first font, it will go to the second, or the third. All these fonts are in the same category with similar looks and sizes, so these substitutions create minimal change.

Another important reason web designers use ‘regular’ or ‘boring’ fonts is for its ease of reading. More artistic and interesting fonts are harder on the eyes and more difficult to read. There’s a reason why just about every computer comes installed with the primary fonts of Times New Roman, Arial, Verdana, Helvetica and very often, Georgia. They’re basic, easily legible and the industry standard.

So sure, you can put a neat looking font on your site, but, it won’t show up that way on everyone’s computer and layout issues will arise. If you have a tagline or heading you really want to be special and stand out, then it can be made into an image. Your designer will use PhotoShop or something similar to create the text in the font you like, then save it as an image and place it on your website. This way, no matter what fonts are installed on a viewer’s computer, they still see it exactly the way you want since it’s an image that has been uploaded to the server. You don’t want to do this too many times however, as images take longer to load than text and will increase your site’s load times. In addition, if the image file somehow gets corrupted and all your text is in that image, the viewers will see nothing but a box with an ‘x’ in it (if you’re using Internet Explorer).

Yes, most fonts are basic and ‘boring’, but boring can be good when it creates a standardization and lends legibility to your text. It is, after all, the main force behind your sales message!

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