Chapter 1. Fonts
As the authors of CSS clearly recognized from the outset, font selection is a popular, indeed crucial, feature of web design. In fact, the beginning of the “Font Properties” section of the CSS1 specification begins with the sentence, “Setting font properties will be among the most common uses of style sheets.” The intervening years have done nothing to disprove this assertion.
CSS2 added the ability to specify custom fonts for download with
@font-face, but it wasn’t until about
2009 that this capability really began to be widely and consistently
supported. Now, websites can call on any font they have the right to use,
aided by online services such as Fontdeck and Typekit. Generally speaking,
if you can get access to a font, you can use it in your design.
It’s important to remember, however, that this does not grant absolute control over fonts. If the font you’re using fails to download or is in a file format the user’s browser doesn’t understand, then the text will be displayed with a fallback font. That’s a good thing, since it means the user still gets your content, but it’s worth bearing in mind that you cannot absolutely depend on the presence of a given font, and should never design as if you can.
Font Families
What we think of as a “font” is usually composed of many variations to describe bold text, italic text, and so on. For example, you’re probably familiar with (or at least have heard of) the font Times. However, Times is actually a combination of many variants, ...
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