With all the great resources out there like WordPress, many people are ‘designing’ their own websites because there is no coding necessary much of the time. However, even with out-of-the-box templates, you usually have some freedom to edit the templates, and this is where using the wrong fonts can literally ruin what you are trying to accomplish. At this point, it might be better if you employed a professional and well-qualified web design company to build your site for you, but if you must dabble in design, it is ultra-important to understand just how important fonts are on your website and how to choose fonts that ‘work’.
Why You Are Advised to Keep Fonts to a Minimum
One of the biggest mistakes many amateur web designers make is to go overboard with everything from graphics to fonts. Bear in mind that simplicity speaks so much louder because it enables your visitors to quickly see what they came to see and quickly navigate to where they want to be. Overusing fonts can be such a huge distraction that it renders a landing page literally useless. Not only is it going to be unattractive, but it may also be so busy that a visitor loses patience and bounces off to the next site.
Avoid Overused and Bulky Fonts
Some fonts have gotten so trendy that you see them everywhere you turn. This is what one highly successful web designer has found with the Lobster font. It’s big, it’s bulky and it’s way overused. Why not try one of the alternatives suggested on that website for a unique look in a similar style to an overused font that has become a web cliché?
Use Fonts that Reflect Who You Are
Another thing about fonts you should be aware of is that there is no such thing as a ‘one-size-fits-all’ font. You wouldn’t expect a medical website to use the same decorative font that a greeting card company might use, and for sure you wouldn’t expect large, trendy fonts on a site like the National Libraries of Medicine scholarly website! Always choose fonts that reflect who you are and what you do. This is vital because a picture really is worth more than a thousand words. Your choice of fonts is the picture you paint even though the words are so much more important. To coin another cliché, remember, people do judge a book by its cover and that would be your fonts in this instance.
Always Use Fonts Developed for Web Design
Finally, one last point to keep in mind is that when you are building a website, you want to use fonts expressly developed for web design. Yes, your articles and blogs will use Calibri, or Arial or some other word processing font, but when it comes to design, use only fonts built to work well with the code of your site. It isn’t easy knowing which fonts work best and the legwork involved might be more than you can handle comfortably. If you aren’t clear on how to effectively use fonts, it’s better to go with a pro than develop a site that just doesn’t work.