This week I'll be at the Voices That matter Conference in Nashville, TN speaking on the topic of Web typography, but I wanted to give everybody at AOL a little preview of the center-piece of my presentation: Web Safe Fonts.

Web typography is pretty much synonymous with limitations. Limited controls, limited styles, but, most importantly, limited font-family choices. The first of these limitations will require changes in the browsers, however, there are a surprisingly large number of fonts to choose from, but only if you are willing to work with a more fluid typography. Most designers are familiar with the 11 "Core Web Fonts" that are industry standards. Primarily, we will use Arial (or Helvetica), Times New Roman (or just Times), and Georgia has become popular in the last few years. You will occasionally see Verdana and Trebuchet MS tried, but these are not the most elegant looking of fonts. We use these fonts because we know that they are pre-installed on most computers. Yet most computers will also have many other fonts pre-installed on them, either by the operating system or by specific applications.

I have created a list of "Web Safe Fonts" showing fonts pre-installed on Windows and Mac as well as fonts installed by iLife on the Mac (which is standard on all Macs) and Microsoft Office for both Mac and PC. Although not all of these fonts will be of general use, it does balloon the list of reliable fonts from 11 to around 200. To make selection easier, I have also indicated which OS the font is pre-installed for, ranked each font on a scale from 1 to 5 (with 1 for fonts almost certain to be installed and 5 for fonts unlikely to be installed), and the source of the font.

Let me know what you think of the list, and if you spot any fonts that should be or should not be in it. The site is in "Beta" while I work on vetting the list and adding functionality (like the ability to sort the list), so any constructive criticism would be most appreciated.

View the Web Safe Fonts >>