From the last few blog posts, you can see that I’ve been experimenting with fonts a little bit. Must have changed the CSS sheet 50x, trying to get the best font / line space look.
And, of course, I screwed it up a few times… note to those who, like me, know just enough web stuff to be dangerous – make a backup of your CSS before you begin mucking with it. Because after an hour, it’s hard to remember what you changed to what size – and changing that one line makes your website explode.
Anyway, I settled on my old favorite – Verdana, in 10pt (or 13px or .8em or whatever passes for 10pt in web/css speak), and using 140% line spacing. I feel this combination is the easiest to read, and, being a writer, I find that pretty important.
As I write, I’m also experimenting using a different font for the sidebars – Arial 10 pt. I don’t know if I like the “two font” thing – we’ll see.
The reason I’m even writing this is because many businesses pay little to no attention to their fonts. They care about the picture that’s on the website, but don’t care so much about the look of the words. Trust me when I tell you, fonts are vital. I have done this before (play with fonts… I have an odd sense of amusement, don’t I?… Literally, I’ll spend hours changing the fonts on my website. Clearly I am out of control)… where was I?
Oh, playing with fonts. Yes. I have tested this type of thing. Tracked my conversion rate and time people spent on my website, then changed the font, and looked at the numbers again a week or two later. This is how I settled on Verdana – I have noticed better results with Verdana than any other font. Arial is second, and no other font is even remotely close.
And the size I am currently using is best. I know you corporate people like your tiny little fonts, but they look too much like fine print to me (and everyone else.) You know what “fine print” is, right? It’s where evil corporations bury all of the terms and conditions and side effects. They put “the fine print” IN fine print because (get this) NOBODY READS IT. IT’S TOO HARD.
Trust me, “May Cause Festering Boils” will NEVER be in easy to read print.
So, if we can agree that fine print is hard to read (and a great place to bury the bad stuff), why on earth would a company use “fine print” on the pages of their website? I dunno, but lots do – they’d see better results if they changed it.
Ok, that’s today’s marketing thought. Verdana (or Arial). 10pt+ (or similar).
Arial used to be the favorite font but now it’s Verdana.
In the past few months, I’ve read checklists from some of the big names in marketing such as Dan Kennedy, Armin Morin, etc) and Verdana is suggested as THE font to use. So you’re in good company with your views on Verdana.
Just please never use Comic Sans. We graphic designers have a almost vampiric garlic repulsion towards it. 😉 We don’t mind Comic book fonts, we just don’t like Comic Sans since we see it everywhere.
(Being a little factitious in the last paragraph)