8 fonts you probably don t use in css, but should CSS has brought us many capabilities in terms of typography

and the web, but we always seem to be limited to the same 4-5 typefaces over and over again. There i s an inherant problem, if the font you specify isn t on the viewers computer it wo n t render in that font. So as designers and developers we end up selecting the on es that we can safely assume is available on most computers today. So most pages use Arial, Helvetica, or Georgia as their typefaces and the world of the web rem ains slightly more bland. But there are quite a few high quality typefaces that are available on most new computer systems and you can always fall back on the common ones. Of course ther e are options like creating images, dynamic headlines, and siFR but all of these techniques increase load time and development time. There are plenty of good rea sons to be strategic in the font choices rather than using additional technology . I am shocked at how rarely I see anyone taking advantage of these type options , so here is a quick and dirty list of fonts you should and could use in your de sgns and stylesheets. 1. Palatino Linotype / Palatino WINDOWS 97.09% / MAC 78.86% This is a nice serif font that his pretty good support for both Mac and Windows based machines (97.09% of all windows machines have it, and 78.86% of mac s). Yet very few people use it and instead default to georgia or times. As you can see i t makes for great headlines, and I have used it with success as copy type as wel l. Worse case you can always default back to georgia, times, etc. 2. Tahoma WINDOWS 96.09% / MAC 72.02% I admit this ere it could he fact that Helvetica if 3. Impact WINDOWS 95.85% / MAC 88.08% Admittedly this font probably is overused in non-web related design. Since it is one of the cooler default fonts on most machines it tends to get a lot of use. De spite this fact there are plenty of good places to use it, and it works great fo r well impactfull headlines. 4. Century Gothic WINDOWS 85.44% / MAC 42.50% This is a nice elegant font that was overused by graphic designers some time ago , but it has been locked away and shunned for some time now. It may almost be ti me to pull it back out of the tool chest. Not a huge percent of Mac systems come with it preinstalled, but most new ones do. Depending on your target audience t is not one of my favorite fonts, but it does have many instances wh be used effectively. It doesn t seem to get used very often despite t it could be an excellent copy font. Again there is always Arial or the machine doesn t have Tahoma installed.

his could be the perfect font to use. If you are worried about the low mac suppo rt you could always opt for Futura as well (which has very high mac support). 5. Arial Black WINDOWS 97.73% / MAC 96.18% Yup you don t just have to use plain old Arial. Arial black is a nice bold font th at could be perfect for headings, impacting headlines, and hell even a replaceme nt for the Impact font mentioned above. I don t know that I would use it for body text, but it is an option that should be realized in web typography. 6. Arial Narrow WINDOWS 87.08% / MAC 91.01% Arial again! We are not done yet, oh no. Much like arial black, arial narrow is a great font for headlines. Instead of the big bold in your face style of headli nes you can use this typeface for more elegant subtle headlines. A nice change f rom the traditional arial, and can be used much like you would a condensed font. 7. Copperplate / Copperplate Gothic Light WINDOWS 58.13% / MAC 85.85% I will admit I hate this font, mostly because it is misused (and people will pro bably argue that it is not the fonts fault, but the designers). But there are ti mes when it can be used effectively, and it has pretty good support on newer win dows computers and most mac based computers. Most likely it will again be for he adlines, larger headlines, as it is not terribly legible at small fonts especial ly when it isn t properly aliased. 8. Gill Sans / Gill Sans MT WINDOWS 43.09% / MAC 90.82% No surprise I like this font. I think it works both in copy and in headlines, an d it has fair support in both platforms. Anytime you use a font that has about 5 0% support rate you want to think about the next logical font to serve, but ther e are enough options specific to windows that would let you achieve the same typ ographic message with only subtle differences.