People that visit this site regularly may have noticed that the fonts have recently been updated on here.
The main considerations for using fonts on this site are that they should:
- Be legally available for free. (goodbye Proxima Nova)
- They should have good on screen readability. This was more important than any fancy features that may make a font compelling to the eye for the first 5 seconds before becoming an eyesore.The old content font, Verdana had good readability on the screen.
- Be widely available. While Verdana was widely available on Windows, it wasnt so much on other platforms, and its substitute on linux atleast was poor.
Given the above, there were some issues with the fonts being used: the first two criteria were met and the third was mostly met, but with the advent of mobile browsers and presence of alternative platforms to Windows, a better substitute was needed.
Now that modern browsers are capable of displaying web fonts, an alternative was available for the website to provide its own fonts that should work everywhere. This technology was already being used for some fonts such as for headings, but not for the main content font.
The title and headings font is still the same as before: Rokkitt.
For the main article content, the font has been changed from Verdana (wide font, easy to read but not available everywhere) to Lato.
For other elements, such as the menubar and on the right hand column, the font now being used is called "Montserrat". This has replaced the earlier use of Source Sans Pro.
All three are available through google fonts.
If you have any comments on the fonts or have better choices that you want considered, speak up.
A method to testing different fonts and sizes etc is to install a "bookmarklet" called font friend. Save the relevant bookmarlet to your bookmarks, open a page, click that bookmark and a window will pop up allowing you to test hundreds of (mostly awful) fonts.
