Yes! Fonts are graphical representations of text that may be expressed by a different typeface, size, weight, or color. You might have picked a font or font-face on a software program like Microsoft Word or WordPad. Fonts can be used on your website as well. Below is an example of fonts that reliably display on any computer or browser. These are cross-platform fonts.
But there are many more fonts to choose from. We are guessing between 300,000 to north of half a million. When it comes to designing a website you really only need one or two fonts depending on the look that you are trying to achieve. There are exceptions of course where you have a highly expressive website where different fonts help convey the feeling a certain kind of message. It is important to not go too crazy with font usage.
Fonts can be expensive, however there are many places to go for free fonts. Google Fonts is one of those places. They have about 884 fonts as of this writing.
Fonts can be broken down into general categories like Serif and San Serif. A Serif is the additional decoration on the ends of the character strokes of a font. Times is a good example of a Serif. Arial would be an example of a San Serif (or without serif). There is also Slab Serif which has a block on the ends of the character strokes. As illustrated below.
One thing to keep in mind when adding fonts to your website is that, if the font you want to use isn’t a cross-platform font, it may need to be loaded on to your website or loaded from Google Fonts. That can be a little tricky.
Google Fonts are widely excepted with modern WordPress themes and there is usually a font picker that loads the fonts available from Google. There are certainly plenty there to use. But if you have a specific font in mind or one that you paid for that you want to use, it will need to be uploaded to your website’s file system and accessed through your website’s style sheets. That might be tricky. You can count on Site Mechanix to help you with fonts on your website. Let us know what you want to do.
