When a new computer is bought, it comes with a limited number of fonts installed by the manufacturer. In the web design world these system defaults are called the web-safe fonts. Of course, anyone who does graphic or web design work is not satisfied with this visually boring set. As a rule, all designers install additional package of fonts which allow them to be more creative with their digital artwork. And this is where the problem can arise.  Once you install fonts of your own, you cannot guarantee that everyone will have those fonts.

If you are sending your design to print, you must also supply all of the artwork’s fonts (they should be embedded, outlined, or attached). If one of your designs is viewed on another system, that system will replace any missing fonts with one of its defaults unless it has exactly the same font set as your system. These changes will cause distortions in your layout.

The same problem occurs online, unless web-safe type faces are used. Unlike the print example above, your own font collection cannot be downloaded by each user viewing the page. Any fancy type face will be left to their system’s interpretation. In order to avoid unpredictable layout changes, the recommendation is to limit online font use to the following families: Arial, Courier New, Georgia, Times New Roman, Verdana, Trebuchet MS , Lucida Sans.

Here are some images of what those fonts look like:

Of course this compromise doesn’t come without limiting creativity. But there are a couple of ways to work within the limitations:

1. Only use of fancy fonts in areas such as webpage headers, footers, banners etc. that will be saved as images.
2. Vary other elements in attractive ways while still using the web-safe fonts. For example, you can alter the text color, background, and borders.

There are also some advantages of using the fonts that are good for online use:

1. They guarantee the layout will appear whole
2. They have a clean appearance on the page
3. They were chosen for ease of readability

The web is a dynamic place, constantly changing and progressing and who knows, maybe in the nearest future there will be more possibilities for online fonts.