We’re spoiled for choice these days. We can use so many fonts on our websites with ample provided by Google before we have to look at installing or connecting to other services in order to show exactly the font we want people to see.
But… You know where I’m going now, don’t you. This is too often something that is “just because we can doesn’t mean we should”.
Today I visited a website of someone I held in some regard, someone I am learning from, and certainly someone whose website I expected to be worthy of a certain awesomeness… This may well be due to my personal imposter syndrome, mind, but if someone is showing people how to do stuff with their websites and onlinery magic, I expect good things. Instead I was met with a font that I could barely read.
I imagine this person thought it was pretty and cool and different.
Now I will endeavour to read the page but won’t stay for longer than I need to. And the awesome has dialled way down.
Of course fonts are in the eye of the beholder. But really, it’s not difficult to think beyond the vanity of using the pretty font in favour of something that is more easily read. Your font should not distract people, it should make it easier for people to read what you want them to read. Not to click away as soon as they can because their eyes hurt!
So stop it. Be sensible. I’m not saying we all have to use the same limited families of fonts from days of yore (I am still partial to Verdana and don’t care who knows it 😉 ); there are plenty of cool fonts we can choose from – swirls and curls and fancy pants nonsense is unnecessary and annoying (and not just to a grump like me, really). Let your visitors read your amazing content and they are actually more likely to do that thing you want them to.
Or if you must have fancy curly font, make it a bit bigger, at least.
Good grief…
This week my teenage daughter asked me, with scorn dripping from her tone, why I get so few Likes and why do so few people follow me. For me Instagram is just a fun way to share pictures that catch my eye, another way to keep in touch with friends who also loiter there, and it’s actually the simplest way to get a photo from my iPhone onto Facebook (which I keep for personal use).
While meandering through Twitter and Facebook to see what might be worthy of sharing with my fine followers, I was keen to have a read of some Pinterest tips and hints (the wording of the title was not shouty so my hopes were high!). Sadly, before I could even find what I’d come for the larger text adverts to sign up for awesomeness bombarded me not just once, or twice but three times, before I’d moved the mouse or down arrow! Good grief. Now really, was that a good thing? Are we, as readers, a bit fed up of this now? Or am I simply being a grumpy Brit?
Then in February we’ll Blab – don’t ask, I have no real idea other than video is involved, but will be asking someone for whom I have great respect, Steven Healey. He’s invited me for a