Website fonts often go unnoticed by everyone except other designers. Perhaps you, a small business owner here in Snellville or Atlanta, haven’t given fonts much thought until you saw this post’s headline. However, we ensure you that your website fonts make much more of a difference in your overall website design than you realize. Let’s explore some of the impacts of poor font choices, as well as how you can make the right font choices.
Why Be Worried About Website Fonts In the First Place?
There’s no real way to sugarcoat this topic, unfortunately. If your website’s fonts clash or are difficult to read, your site will simply look unprofessional. The content on your blog could be fantastic and groundbreaking, but it won’t matter. Your products and services might be incredible, but it won’t matter.
If visitors and readers land on your site, but can’t tell what they’re reading, your website design isn’t doing its job. Many DIY website designers and business owners will create their own website and get so caught up in the process that they forget to keep things simple. Over-designing won’t necessarily make your website better; in fact, it might just do the opposite. Keeping this in mind, let’s take a look at five important guidelines for helping you select the right website fonts for your business page.
Five Basic Rules for Selecting the Right Fonts for Your Website Design
Rule #1: The Website Fonts Must Be Easy to Read
While scripted fonts are beautiful and elegant, they can be extremely difficult to read – especially in your website’s body text. It’s best to select a print-like typeface for any body text on your website. If you want to use a scripted font for your logo, go for it! Just leave the simpler text formats for the remainder of your website design.
Rule #2: The Font Colors Must Not Clash With the Background
This is a common mistake that many self-designed websites make. We’ve all been to an early 90s website that used red font on a black background. These types of color combinations will confuse your readers (and hurt their eyes). Stick to white and off-white backgrounds and black or off-black text so that your readers will be able to read through your website without taking headache medicine!
Web Design Tip: Keep in mind how the text will read on any images you load your page with. If there will be white text over a dark image, add a semi-transparent, darker layer over the top of the image. This will help your text stand out and pop a lot more.
Rule #3: Use Two Website Fonts
It’s very important to follow this rule. Three or more fonts can be confusing to the reader’s eye and having only one font can make it difficult for your reader to stay focused – even if you have headings formatted in. Furthermore, you’ll need to choose two website fonts that complement each other. This can be a difficult design choice for those who don’t work with graphics design or website design on a regular basis. If you aren’t sure which fonts to choose, the website design experts at Snellville Websites can help you.
Rule #4: Font Size Must Make Sense With Your Website Design
Think about your target audience as you prepare your font choices. Along with choosing a font face, you also need to choose the sizing for your headings, body text, and menus. A font that is too large will subtract from the design of your website – unless the style you’ve selected uses large fonts to separate itself from others. On the other hand, a font that is too small will force users to magnify the page and not get the full effect of your design. Think carefully about how you want users to interact with your site as you decide on font sizing.
Rule #5: Fonts Must Have Sufficient Contrast
If your fonts don’t contrast enough, users will have a hard time determining where to start and stop reading on your pages – especially your blog posts. First and foremost, let’s get one thing out of the way: website visitors will likely be skimming your blog posts (like this one). You can aid the skimmers by including contrasting headings, quotes, and more. In order to create this level of contrast, you can employ the following techniques:
- Choose a thick font for headers and a thin font for body text.
- Choose an all-caps font for headers and regular font for body text.
- Choose a stylized font (italics, underlined, etc.) for headers and normal font for body text.
- Choose a chunky text for headers from the same family as your body text.
Need Help on the Font Front? Snellville Websites Can Help.
Designing, writing for, and hosting your own website can be a lot of work, and, honestly, that’s why we’re here. Snellville Websites has a team of professional website designers, content creators, and graphic designers that can help you nail that first impression. Curious about what your new or redesigned website might look like? Contact us today to schedule a consultation.
