Font substitution
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- plugindesign
I am working on concepts for a new site.
I have designed the site using Helvetica, I love that 60's swiss style, anyway, I have not decided wether to develop in Flash or HTML, for SEO reasons, I would like to try and develop in HTML.
Is it safe to say that all Mac users have Helvetica installed and most PC users don't. If this is the case, can I set up a style sheet that asks for Helvetica but replaces with Arial if it is not. (Any links to tutorials on this).
If font substition does take place, will this effect the layout in any way? Taking a quick look, their sizes seem very similar.
The key thing is to display Helvetica if available.
Any sites you know that use the above approach?
Thanks.
- rabattski0
yep. within stylesheets you can specify multiple fonts, it the first one's not available it tries the second one and so forth. just define the font in pixelsize, you'd get little differences but it shouldn't be too much these days. but most pc's have helvetica if i'm not mistaken.
- rabattski0
it's the css definition of font-family btw.
- rabattski0
oh, example!
- plugindesign0
Thanks for that, pretty sure most PC's don't come Helvetica installed, I have recently purchased a Laptop on it didn't.
Another point, I wanted to use images for the titles, would mixing Helvetica titles with Arial be a big no-no, if I had the choice then I wouldn't, suppose the only other option would be to do it Flash.
- rabattski0
mixing helvetica and arial? oh man, can't find that link to that helvetica arial test anymore. anyways most people don't see the difference between arial and helvetica, and those differences are minor anyways. so i'd say no it wouldn't be a big deal. typographically i'd say stick to one but only true typography nerds would really appreciate that.
- MrZinky0
Most PC's have arial installed on them.
My suggestions is if you are using Helvetica for body copy you are going to run into legibilty issue at smaller scale.
- plugindesign0
That would be this one:
- rabattski0
nah it wasn't that one. it really was a test, showed you a bit of a text or just a couple of characters and you had to answer if it's helvetica or arial. lemme see if i can dig it up. btw that book (homage to helvetica) is really nice.
- rabattski0
this's the one:
http://www.iliveonyourvisits.com…
- acescence0
if you're a fan of using tiny point sizes on the web, consider the fact that both helv and arial were designed to ultimately look good on the page.. real, not virtual.
verdana is the one universal sans font designed specifically for screen.
serif- georgia.
- plugindesign0
Good link, I was thinking of getting that book, I am brushing up on my layout skills with Grid Systems in Graphic Design by Josef Muller-Brokmann
- Epictive0
Also this: http://www.creativebehavior.com/…
- rabattski0
that book doesn't cover things as grids, it's really just an homage to helvetica.
- rabattski0
nice link epictive.