Semi Web Safe Fonts to Spice Up Your Web Designs

Sunday, August 20, 2017

We all know of the usual web safe fonts, you know, Arial, Verdana, Georgia, Times New Roman etc? They’ve been around for years and have become the standard for web typography, but there’s a bunch of fonts out there that are just waiting to be put to use in web design.

Semi web safe fonts is a term I’m using to refer to those fonts that aren’t usually found on multiple operating systems as standard but are often bundled with common software applications such as Office or the Adobe Creative Suite. How many people do you know who have Microsoft Office on their PC? Quite a few I’d imagine. The same goes if you’re creating a design related site, the users will all probably have the Adobe Creative Suite.

This means there’s a bunch of fonts on their system that can be targeted with CSS if the font is present it can spice up your website design a treat. If the font isn’t installed, simply specify secondary options so the font reverts back to the popular font stacks. Remember each font has different dimensions, so use them wisely to avoid too much line wrapping, particularly on titles. Let’s take a look at some of the common semi web safe fonts:

Myriad Pro

This is a sans serif typeface with 40 styles. It is also available in Adobe Typekit for sync and web use. This font includes Greek and Cyrillic glyphs, as well as adding old style figures. It is popular for both text and display composition ever since 1992.

Myriad

.myriad {
        font-family: Myriad Pro, Trebuchet MS, Arial, Sans-Serif;
}

Garamond

Garamond is a group of many old-style serif typefaces. It has 6 styles, and as Myriad Pro, it is available in Adobe Typekit. Its design is based on the typeface first created by the famed French printer Claude Garamond in the sixteenth century.

Garamond

.garamond {
        font-family: Garamond, Times New Roman, Serif;
}

Palatino

This is another popular typeface, based on the Hermann Zapf’s own elegant calligraphy. This font family is included with modern versions of Microsoft software. The font was named after Giambattista Palatino – master of calligraphy. This font was designed over 50 years ago but it still remains beautiful and frequently used by designers!

Palatino

.palatino {
        font-family: Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Serif;
}

Impact

This is a sans-serif typeface designed by Geoffrey Lee in 1965. It looks really good for big, bold headers, in both print and web projects.

Impact

.impact {
        font-family: Impact, Haettenschweiler, Sans-Serif;
}

Tahoma

This is a free font for Windows and Mac. It is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Matthew Carter designed for Microsoft Corporation. It consists of two Windows TrueType fonts (regular and bold).

Tahoma

.tahoma {
        font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, Sans-Serif;
}

Century Gothic

Century Gothic is a sans-serif typeface in the geometric style. It was released by Monotype Imaging in 1991. Its design was influenced by the font Futura. This font is also based on Monotype 20th Century, which was drawn by Sol Hess.

Century Gothic

.century {
        font-family: Century Gothic, Arial, Sans-Serif;
}

Gill Sans

This is another humanistic sans serif family with a British tone and concept. It was designed by Eric Gill and released by the British branch of Monotype. This toolkit family includes a different styles such as Light and a Regular.

Gill Sans

.gill {
        font-family: Gill Sans, Arial, Sans-Serif;
}

Lucida

This is an extended font family designed by Charles Bigelow. The Lucida fonts have a large height and wide spaces between letters. Its design was based on traditional Roman letterform shapes.

Lucida

.lucida {
        font-family: Lucida Sans Unicode, Lucida Grande, Sans-Serif;
}

Futura

This is a sans serif typeface with 22 styles. This geometric sans-serif typeface was designed by Paul Renner.

Futura

.futura {
        font-family: Futura, Verdana, Sans-Serif;
}

Baskerville

Baskerville is a serif typeface designed by John Baskerville, an accomplished writing master, and printer from Birmingham, in the 1750s.

Baskerville

.baskerville {
        font-family: Baskerville, Times New Roman, Serif;
}

Hoefler Text

This is a family of typefaces with a more digital design. It is free for Windows and Mac. This is an old-style serif font by Jonathan Hoefler and released by Apple in 1991.

Hoefler

.hoefler {
        font-family: Hoefler Text, Georgia, Serif;
}

Cooper

This is a font designed by Oswald Bruce Cooper with a heavily weighted, display serif design. It was influenced by Art Nouveau, Art Deco, and the Machine Age.

Cooper Black

.cooper {
        font-family: Cooper Black, Arial Black, Sans-Serif;
}

Rockwell

The Rockwell font family is a slab serif typeface influenced by the old Litho Antique font. This geometric slab serif design has a strong display face for headlines and posters.

Rockwell

.rockwell {
        font-family: Rockwell, Georgia, Serif;
}

Check over the examples to see if each font is installed on your system. No doubt there will be some discrepancies depending operating systems and software installed, but these semi web safe fonts are definitely worth considering for your next web design project.

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