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Font Matching

Aperture

Aperture

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 19, 2006
1,876
0
PA
Hi Guys. I'm not a designer but am working on my new website and am looking for some help with fonts. The main font I chose for the site navigation/title only is available in all capitals and that obviously won't work for regular content. Here is what I mean..

blogpreviewdone.png


Does anyone have a recommendation for a font to replace the "blah blah blah"? I'm not asking you to do my site for me, just some ideas of fonts that might match the all capital one.

Any help appreciated,

Thanks
 
You realize that any font you choose as body text in HTML, the viewer will have to have on their own machine, and thay the viewer can change the size (and therefore the wrapping) of the text at will?

So unless you are planning to do the body all in graphics or Flash, you don't have a wide range of choice.

Ah... OK it looks like you are going Flash, correct?

One thing is, if you are using white text against a background, you'll need to make it larger and/or bolder than if it were black text on white.
 
CanadaRAM said:
One thing is, if you are using white text against a background, you'll need to make it larger and/or bolder than if it were black text on white.
Click to expand...

Yes, it is going to be in flash.

Thanks for the tip on the text, I'll keep it in mind.:) Like I said, I really appreciate the tips from the actual designers on this board.
 
Aperture said:
Yes, it is going to be in flash.
Click to expand...

Even if it's going to be in Flash, the user will still need to have the chose font installed unless you convert all text to images (not recommended :eek: ) Your best bet for compatibility is to use a commonplace font for the body text, like Arial or Verdana or Times.
 
Aperture said:
Does anyone have a recommendation for a font to replace the "blah blah blah"? I'm not asking you to do my site for me, just some ideas of fonts that might match the all capital one.
Click to expand...
Instead of trying to match what you have, it may be easier to pick a family for the body text that has a small caps font of its own. Or, you may want to go in a different direction…

What is the look you are trying to go for in the body, something that looks like a traditional book? You may want to think on that for a while. The text anti-aliasing in Flash isn't so great at smaller sizes. It's massively adjustable so that you get a wide range of not so great, but still, readability is an issue.

Just for grins, this is how a few popular faces along the lines of what you had in your sample would look. This is a screenshot with Flash set to anti-alias with its so-called "for readability" preset.

flash sillies.png

This is why those pixel fonts have become so popular, even though they don't look so great either. An alternative to bitmap fonts would be to go with a much simpler face (maybe even a sans) intended for on-screen use, so that the Flash fuzzies are a lesser problem.

Stampyhead said:
Even if it's going to be in Flash, the user will still need to have the chose font installed unless you convert all text to images (not recommended :eek: )
Click to expand...
Flash does have font embedding. Gotta be careful with dynamic fields though, to only embed as much of the character space as you'll really use, else the resulting swf will get rather bloaty. For static text, it does the right thing automagically.
 
CanadaRAM said:
You realize that any font you choose as body text in HTML, the viewer will have to have on their own machine, and thay the viewer can change the size (and therefore the wrapping) of the text at will?
Click to expand...
Stampyhead said:
Even if it's going to be in Flash, the user will still need to have the chose font installed unless you convert all text to images (not recommended :eek: )...
Click to expand...

Not necessarily.

I've been looking into image replacement techniques for a website (e.g. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/276272/), and there are things like http://www.mikeindustries.com/sifr/ that can help you with using fonts you like but your users won't necessarily have.

There's others on http://www.mezzoblue.com/tests/revised-image-replacement/ if you're interested.

CanadaRAM said:
One thing is, if you are using white text against a background, you'll need to make it larger and/or bolder than if it were black text on white.
Click to expand...
Or alternatively, provide some way to switch to a higher-contrast/easier readability stylesheet.
 
Reading your post again, is the "all caps font" supposed to be the big one in the tabs, or the one in the date headers?

If you meant the big stuff, it's pretty much a dead ringer for DIN 1451, which has lowercase.
 
Aperture said:
I'm talking about the one in the tabs at the bottom and the one my name at the top right is in.
Click to expand...

Alrighty then. If you want that unadorned sort of look and if the DIN stuff looks a little too brutal, you might play with the Univers family. Unlike a certain other family that also turned 50 this year, it has a variety of weights and widths that actually go together. At smaller sizes, it survives Flash damage fairly well too.
 
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