Unless you’ve got your head in the design sand, you’ll have noticed a pretty remarkable event transpiring in the world of web typography: serifed fonts are making a comeback! While this is nothing new to those actually paying attention to how things look, it is however, not news until it’s reported here.
This transformation can be attributed to the design renaissance* known as “Web 2.0”. The daily beating and flogging of Helvetica and Arial has forced those that aren’t willing to repeat themselves into searching for alternative edge. The edge in my mind exists in part due to the lack of variety in web safe fonts as well as w/in the genre they’re being used. When I say genre, and I hate bringing 2.0 into this again but it is directly related to way in which we’re utilizing fonts at the moment. They’re big, bold, brightly colored, and many times reflected or shadowed. Add these attributes to Times New Roman or Georgia, and what was outdated suddenly is fresh.
Where the freshness and alternative edge is derived is the context in which the fonts are used. Since these fonts still carry all the inherent traits of their previous life, it’s still possible to give your site that same, unwanted feel. Well, I say unwanted if you don’t want your site to resemble a 404 Error message, or (the horror) a styleless HTML page! When you add this type of font to a site that fits the mold of new-web design (whatever that is…) and give it some atypical coloring, tighter (or even looser) kerning, larger pixel size, you’ve just shed some new design light on it. This subtle shift now takes on both ironic and irreverent elements. An example of this shift is if a designer who traditionally favors a bold and tightly kerned sans-serifed font suddenly switches up and sets his headers and body to Georgia while keeping w/ a similar color scheme and site design to the original.
One example that immediately comes to mind for me is the blog, Modern Life. I’ll be honest and say that I was taken aback by the overtly large serif fonts for the headers as well as the body copy. Yet I found myself drawn to the site for both the content as well as sharp visuals.
Finally, check out Khoi Vihn’s redo of the New York Times website. He’s still using the serifed fonts that the paper is traditionally known for, but the change in the article header colors, as well as the overall layout and design gives it a fresh, and now, modern feeling. Not bad for a paper that was started in 1851, and published its first color photograph in 1997.
I’ve been experimenting w/ some serifs I bought from the shady dude on the street corner. I hope I didn’t get ripped off and this stuff works… I should have some sample layouts available soon.
On a quick technical note, Flashers aren’t able to utilize serifed fonts nor are they able to size fonts above 8 pixels due to certain unknown, self-imposed constraints.
* No note, I just thought that was ridiculous.
Technorati Tags: fonts, web fonts, web design, serif, sans-serif, old-assed TMR
