Speaking in Styles: Fundamentals of CSS

Chapter 9. Typography

The fonts you choose convey as much of your Web site’s message as your words. The initial response to a Web page is a visceral one—a reaction to the visual design—rather than a conscious thought. This happens within seconds of the page loading, and beyond the images, chrome, and colors, one of the first things the visitor notices is all of the squiggles making words.

The sad fact is, though, Web typography is mostly boring because the only font families at your disposal (unless you put the text into a graphic) are the typefaces installed on the end user’s machine. All this may seem very limiting at first, but it’s not nearly ...