![]() However, I’ve found with the very limited choices available, Verdana is actually a good choice for blog posts. ![]() Last week I had a client ask me to typeset a 540 page book in Verdana, and I had to politely decline. ![]() I agree that Verdana is an exceptionally poor choice for print work. Spend enough time with type and you just have to develop favorites, likes and dislikes. And certainly, after a lifetime (has it really been that long?) in graphic arts and design, I have my own prejudices about typefaces. I love your blog and the down-to-earth advice and education you are offering your readers. This post was originally published on Maand has been updated with the most recent information. High-end Fonts for Free: How to Go Upscale with Your TypographyĪre You Falling for Font Falsehoods? What Matters for Picking the Best Font Size What Font Should You Use to Brand Your Business? You’ll find lots of great typography resources on this site. Hey - if you self identify as a typography nerd, I’d like to personally welcome you to the club! I’ve been a font fan all my life. Unless you’re going to use it at a tiny size, Helvetica is the perfect alternative to the Verdana font I love to hate.įor even more on fonts, including how to choose, use and combine them, read on. It was designed to be used on a screen, not in print, where it decreases readability and slows your readers down. Besides that, though …Īvoid using Verdana for the main text areas of your site, and certainly do not use it for print work. There’s one use case where the Verdana font shines: If you need to run a small disclaimer or some “legalese” on your site, Verdana’s a good choice. Related: Typeface Combinations that Work on the Web Related: Does This Font Make Me Look Fat? There are so many better fonts to explore besides Verdana! And I’ve got a lot of resources on this site to guide you. My recommendation for using the Verdana font (if you must) Retailer IKEA switched their print catalog and signage to Verdana a while back and caused an uproar that included petitions to remove it, and articles in the Associated Press, Time and Newsweek. Georgia is another screen-compatible typeface that also looks good in print, and is one of the standard typefaces pre-installed on Windows and Mac computers. Verdana was designed by Matthew Carter, who also designed the Georgia typeface. Verdana works better than Helvetica when it’s used very small: When you see the same blocks of text set at a very small size, Verdana starts to look like a great choice. Keep scrolling, my friend! A Verdana alternative you probably already have on hand You’re about to see what I think is the best Verdana alternative, too. The examples below show you why I hate Verdana for regular text copy, and what it’s good for. ![]() They also give the letters a large “x-height,” which is the vertical space between the baseline the letters sit on, and the top of lower-case letters like e, x, a, etc.Īnd they tend to add extra space between letters, because when typefaces are reduced very small, letters will blur together unless they’re spaced out quite a bit. When typeface designers set out to make a typeface that will be readable at small sizes, they streamline the letters to remove flourishes that would get lost at a small size. Microsoft included Verdana as part of its Windows operating system, and so did Mac.ĩ9% of Windows machines and 96% of Macs have it, so it’s widely compatible. It was designed with one purpose in mind: to improve readability in text used very small on a computer screen. The Verdana font was released in 1996, so it’s a modern typeface. ![]()
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