Gerard Bowles, © 1998
Fonts are increasingly important as Web design becomes more sophisticated and Web advertising/marketing more competitive. Most Web designers, developers and authors, and Web users, lack information in use of fonts. They assume, incorrectly, that font choice is merely aesthetic. Font choice can affect the "attractiveness" of a page, but font choice is also a major concern for "appeal"--this is marketing.
The advice of Web developers in their Web-published Web page design guides, is to use a sanserif face, like Helvetica/Arial. (a sanserif face has no serif, for example the short, perpendicular line at the bottom of a capital "T.") However, studies from the '60's to the '90's show that serif faces are more readable, and have greater marketing appeal, than do sanserif faces.
I will not go into depth on typography (design and use of fonts) Web font programming, nor marketing strategy. I have covered these in depth in other papers, some abstracts of these are published on the Web. This paper is written for the majority of Web page designers and amateur Web publishers. For this purpose I will keep this paper short.
The large four, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, and Bitstream are trying to meet the challenge of font use. They know they must offer fonts compatible with the two primary platforms, PC and Macintosh. Mac users are a minority, but too high a percentage, and too affluent a market, to be ignored. Most high-end advertising is also designed on Macs.
Microsoft is supplying "Web fonts" for the PC and Macintosh for free. Adobe has "Web fonts," but for sale (although realistically priced). Obviously, Microsoft's approach is superior contemporary marketing strategy. However, the font designs Microsoft is providing is 1950's-style designs. The standard faces, Times, Garamond, etc. are inferior to the design of those same faces for print design. Microsoft's fonts also have a short x-height, adding to the outdated look and poor readibility. Microsoft currently offers only Trutype fonts, and is also over a year behind in it's promise to offer Type I fonts. Adobe's Web font offering is reasonably and realistically priced but, the designs are not sufficiantly exciting to top Microsoft's free offering. The fonts you design with must match the fonts on a reader's system. Which do you think they will choose? In this early stage of the game, Adobe must give up a more exciting selection to entice mass-users. The choice of the older-style fonts ignores the marketing awareness developed in the 1970's and continued today, and one concern is readability for the aging Baby Boomers. The closest design for the aging Baby Boomers is Apple's font New York. New York's high x-height (height of the lower-case letters) particularly in proportion to the caps, satisfied this marketing need. ITC was keenly aware of this in the, and it shows in their modification of standard faces like Garamond in the early 1980's.
Bitstream is making great claims for its new "TrueDoc" technology. Daniel Will-Harris (Web Review, April. 03, 1998) announces this is the best technological solution. The technology may be great but, the practical application is still limited. For example, for Web use these fonts requires version 4 of Netscape or Internet Explorer. There is some resistance to these browser versions, as being too large due to features not required by the average user. On my computer, Netscape 3 requires less than 10mb, Netscape 4 close to 30mb. I find Netscape version 3 faster and cleaner than 4, even with my 80mb of memory. The bulk of the slowness is opening a program this large.
Microsoft has taken the appropriate marketing approach by offering some free fonts. But, considering Microsoft's font naivete, it would be easy for Adobe, or Bitstream, to entice both users and designers (potential buyers) with readable and attractive fonts.
The intelligent marketing strategy would be to offer two fonts free, a serif and a sanserif, for both PC and Macintosh. This would help generate a market for other fonts. The sanserif should be a modern but readable, and distinctive face, akin to Bauhaus, Clearface Gothic or Souvenir Gothic. Helvetica/Arial already meet the no-frills, sanserif needs
The serif design should be a cross between Apple's New York and Microsoft's Georgia; not as extended as New York, and not as condensed as Georgia. Yes, there are old faces that already meet this need, and one of these can chosen, or a serif Web font designed. Microsoft has recently become a major stockholder of Apple, so they should be able to work together.
This is an example of three faces. You will not see a difference if you do not have these installed on your system. If you do not, the font you will see is that chosen in the preferences of your browser. Times New Roman comes with Microsoft's Windows system software. It is compatible with "Times" supplied by Apple's Macintosh in their system software. I have also made pics of selected fonts below, so you can see the design if they are not installed.
| Two Microsoft fonts, and your selected browser font: | |||||||||||||
| Times New Roman | The Quick Brown Fox - The Quick Brown Fox | ||||||||||||
| Georgia | The Quick Brown Fox - The Quick Brown Fox | ||||||||||||
| Your browser font | The Quick Brown Fox - The Quick Brown Fox | ||||||||||||
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Bitstream This is an example of one of Bitstream's style referencing system, where the font style is linked to the reader from the Bitstream site (I hope this is working on your system). For further information refer to the Bitstream site. | |||||||||||||
| Baker Signet (Bitstream) |
The Quick Brown Fox - The Quick Brown Fox
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Pics (Gifs) of selected fonts: | (The quality will appear lower than your system fonts, especially if your monitor is set at thousands of colors. They are best viewed with the monitor set at millions of colors)
Arial (Microsoft)
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Korinna (Adobe)
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New York (Apple)
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Times New Roman (MS)
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If you would like to test your system to see what fonts you have, or how they are showing up on your monitor, I suggest using this helpful test site. This site's only failing is not showing the font in it's most important size--headlines and subheads.
For users, I suggest visiting the Microsoft site (///) and putting the two most-widly used fonts, Arial and Times New Roman, in your system. Macintosh users should replace their Times font with Microsoft's, and add the Arial. If necessary, the Helvetica may need to be removed.
If you would like to test your system to see what fonts you have, or how they are showing up on your monitor, I suggest using this helpful test site. This site's only failing is not showing the font in it's most important size--headlines and subheads. Remember though, if you do not have a particular font in your system, the font will appear as the default font you selected for your browser.
Technical problems are adequately covered by many papers on the Web written by developers. My Web papers lightly cover the appeal, marketing, and advertising concerns. I am also available to give a short seminar on font use.