Comments on: Striking Web Sites with Font Stacks that Inspire

By: Links about Typography | vitali software

Links about Typography | vitali software — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 05:21:54 +0000

[...] Wonderful Typographic Posters For Inspiration27 conventional and marvelous typographic posters. Striking Web Sites with Font Stacks that Inspire26 sites with unconventional Web Typography to draw some inspiration and learn [...]

By: ghettocooler.net » Links, for you to Click on

ghettocooler.net » Links, for you to Click on — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 13:58:31 +0000

[...] Striking Web Fonts with Font Stacks that Inspire We all should take another look at fonts that are available. Too often we may reach for sIFR, or stick with Georgia and Trebuchet in a time when a little used alternative would be an inspired touch. [...]

By: Striking Web Sites with Font Stacks that Inspire | Catch & Release Media, LLC - Blog

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 20:57:26 +0000

[...] Bit has an amazing collection of sites whose style sheets utilize users’ system-installed fonts. Inspiration Bit provides readers with topics on Web design and development, Art and Photography, [...]

By: Michael Tuck

Michael Tuck — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 13:16:31 +0000

What would be the best fallback font for Baskerville on Linux?

Uh, nothing comes to mind. Pascal? Anyone?

By: Vivien

Vivien — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 06:34:10 +0000

@James: glad you enjoyed the post. Will you be replacing the text images on your site with HTML text then? ;)

@Michael: It would be great if you get into Linux fonts and write the follow up on SitePoint. I’ve yet to update my font stacks with Linux fonts. What would be the best fallback font for Baskerville on Linux?

Absolutely agree with your response to Sebastian: sIFR is acceptable for short titles, but not for the body text (nor text images should be used for that), that’s where the font stacks come very handy.

@David: oh, it’s very nice of you to say so about my background images. I still have to update my theme files so that each post keeps its own background images. As it is now, new background image appears with old posts as well.
Oh, and a new post on iBit is coming up in a day or two.

By: David Airey

David Airey — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 17:28:36 +0000

Just stopped by to see if there was any new content, and had to comment again. I love how you rotate your sidebar image with the most recent post. It really helps tie the subject matter to your site design.

Great idea.

Enjoy the weekend, Vivien!

By: Striking Web Sites with Font Stacks that Inspire | Konigi

Striking Web Sites with Font Stacks that Inspire | Konigi — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 17:37:17 +0000

[...] that Inspire Inspiration Bit has a wonderful collection of sites whose style sheets utilize users’ system-installed fonts. URL inspirationbit.com/striking-we… [...]

By: Michael Tuck

Michael Tuck — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 03:55:01 +0000

Sebastian, you make some good points. It’s a fact that most people don’t install fonts on their machines, and are as a result limited to whatever fonts came with whatever programs they installed. I’m (unfortunately) a Windows user, so I can’t speak for the other platforms, but most Windows users get a tremendous number of fonts from installing MS Office (which won’t come near my machine, it’s balky enough without that monstrosity on there — but I miss out on some cool fonts as a result) and various Adobe programs.

Most users have operating systems, browsers, and office suites on their machines, usually pre-loaded, and a lot of them end up installing fundamentally necessary programs such as Adobe Reader, so they’re getting a good number of the fonts cited in the article. No, they’re not going to buy fonts, or try to find freebie download sites, but if you do a bit of research, you can determine which fonts are more likely to appear on a majority of your users’ machines. You won’t hit every user with your first font choice, but you may hit more than you think.

A lot of people like sIFR for header images and such, but it’s not a viable alternative for large chunks of text. It certainly won’t take the place of a well-considered font stack for headers or for body text.

By: Michael Tuck

Michael Tuck — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 03:41:48 +0000

Hiya Vivien, I’m coming late to the party on this article. :) Thanks for mentioning my SitePoint article. On the whole, the article misses more than it covers because of the heavy editing, but the forum comments are enlightening, and include the extensive source list that went with the original.

On the site I’m currently involved in redesigning, I’ve gone with the Palatinos for the headers, with Constantia and Georgia as fallbacks (no Times New Roman to be found), and Segoe UI as the main sans-serif body font, with the Helveticas and our flawed friend Arial as fallbacks. (I find it somewhat ironic that I didn’t use the font stacks I “recommended” in the article.) Baskerville is a lovely font, but it isn’t on a lot of machines, and as Piotr remarked, it doesn’t match up particularly well with the Palatino family. Also, for this particular design, Baskerville is just a bit too florid. It works absolutely beautifully on the sites you mention (including your own).

One of the ideas I have for writing a follow-up SitePoint article is to delve into Linux fonts a bit more thoroughly. I was a bit disappointed to note that very few of the sites you feature use Linux fonts in their stacks (and pleased to see that you cited the ones that did). Not sure how much I can say about them — Linux users have a paucity of selections as compared to Mac and Windows users — but considering how incredibly short the SP articles are, I imagine I can fill three pages. I’m a long-winded sort. :D

By: James Womack

James Womack — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 04:40:04 +0000

I enjoyed reading this post and learned a thing or two while at it. I have always thought that the common attitude toward web fonts was prudish and now this post is a win for the more adventurous.