You’re going to have to make many hard decisions during your business career…
- Letting good employees go, in order to balance financial constraints.
- Discontinuing a product that just didn’t work well.
- Choosing between family events and a new launch.
These things happen, and all of these decisions are going to test your business nerve.
But none of them will test it quite like choosing the right font for your website! You probably think we’re joking about that. But no, we’re actually not. Choosing a good font is one of the trickiest and perhaps most important parts of the initial website design stages.
This is the font that all of your users will have to look at, to scan through, to engage with. There are bad typefaces and there are good ones. There are types that are associated with ignorant usage and types that are associated with high-brow literature. There’s no one good answer to the font problem, and that’s what makes it such a challenge for website owners just starting out. So how exactly do you decide?
The Font Problem
One of the key things to recognise in the world of typefaces is that some fonts are universally hated. Brush Script MT, Cooper Black, Papyrus, Comic Sans. Using any of these fonts isn’t bad per se, but there are just too many people who loathe them to risk it.
On the other hand, there are some people who have an irrational hatred of particular fonts. These are the users you won’t be able to avoid. As mentioned previously, there’s no one good answer to a problem like this, and you’re bound to pick a font that at least a handful of people don’t take to.
Playing it Safe
With that in mind, however, we wouldn’t recommend playing it safe. There are many website designers out there who will look at the top-ranked websites on Google and simply copy and paste everything that makes them good – including the typography. It might be the case that the particular typography you copy works well enough for your website, but you shouldn’t base this decision on what’s worked for others.
We’ve said it before plenty of times on this blog, but the online space is like a massive shopping mall filled with thousands of stores that offer the exact same thing you do. You can’t stand out from the crowd by merging yourself into it. You’ve got to be unique, and this comes all the way down to the font you use for your website content.
Choosing the Right Font
In our opinion, the best way to choose the right font for your website starts with assessing your brand identity. For example, a tech startup might opt for a modern sans-serif font, while a law firm might choose a classic serif font to convey professionalism and tradition. The font should also align with your other branding elements, such as your logo and visual identity, the aesthetics of your site, and the colour scheme you’re going for.
You should also consider readability and legibility. As a basepoint, the typeface should be easy to read on all devices and screen sizes, ensuring anyone reading on a mobile device will have just as easy a time as someone reading on their browser. Factors such as letter spacing, line height, and font weight should be considered, as well as the clarity of varying sizes.
Even more importantly, you need to factor in whether your website is content-heavy or content-light. By that we mean, if your website is more visual and imagery-focused, the font should be subtle yet decorative enough to align with it. On the other hand, if you have a lot of information or you’re curating a regular blog, the font should be standard and to the point, allowing for a smooth, engaging read without any bells and whistles.
Lastly, you’ll need to factor in how the font affects the performance of the website. For instance, if you’ve chosen a bold font with more style and weight, you need to check if it negatively impacts your page loading times, both on browser and mobile platforms. No font should do anything to hamper the user experience, so it’s important to keep things simple and avoid overcomplication – this is also attributable to the number of fonts you use, and the number of site pages with different styles.
Conclusion
Many standard website fonts will undoubtedly work for your website, but they won’t do a lot to set you apart. As with all big decisions, it’s essential you sit down and think about what will work best. Consider the visuals you’re giving the user, and how they align with the broader context of your business. The more you understand, the easier the decision will become.
More questions around web design? Contact us.
