2009/9/21 Rob Emenecker <[email protected]>: >> [1] font: 1em/1.4 'Helvetica Neue', 'Nimbus Sans L', Arial, >> sans-serif; 'Helvetica Neue' is a better screen font than >> 'Helvetica, and matches much closer the intrinsic line-height >> of Arial. Plus it has multiple weights (100, 300, 400, 700 or >> UltraLight, Light, Normal/regular and >> bold) which is a nice thing to use, sometimes > > I agree that Helvetica Neue is a beautiful font, especially when compared to > Arial (ugh), or the default cuts of Helvetica. Though designing to it (and > Nimbus Sans L) for web, means designing for a narrow market. It also assumes > that the people that HAVE the font, actually have it ACTIVE. > I thought it was reasonably well understood you can't really design for a specific font on the web. For a start aiming a design around one font completely ignores the blind or partially sighted visitor with a screen reader who has no interest in any of the visuals. I hope we can all recall the disability discrimination legislation that governs that in our own physical environments. So rule No 1 is they actually have to be using the relevant hardware or display medium.
Secondly, as everyone has concluded here, the end user actually has to have the font installed. There may be something out there that allows us to say 'use this font of my server if you please' but we are still going to be hit by font licenses somewhere along the line. Thirdly, we can't assume the default font of a given type is the same on two machines with almost identical software installations but different user preferences with software that respects those preferences. If I force my default sans font to be Times New Roman or Courier New then there is no way the default sans in a font stack is ever going to render Arial in my FF. Unless it's a bug of course ;). All we can do is say what we would like it to be. If an end user insists on bright yellow bold Courier New on a royal blue background who are we to interfere? Regards L. ______________________________________________________________________ css-discuss [[email protected]] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
