21 Stunning Web Safe Fonts
Published: Oct 16, 2009
Fonts are one of the most important building blocks in design and sooner or later you get fed up with the traditional Verdana, Arial, and Helvetica fonts. While there is nothing wrong with Verdana, Arial, and Helvetica – they are three of the safest fonts – it gets boring if you only use these. On the other hand, if you use a rare font which users don't have on their system, this is also unprofessional because you have no control over the mess the user will see in their browser. That is why the so called web safe fonts have been designed.
How Safe Are Web Safe Fonts
Web safe fonts are fonts that look good on screen and are relatively popular, so you can safely assume that your visitors will have this font on their system. Very often these fonts come with the operating system itself, so users have them installed by default. Still, there is no guarantee that the fonts you use will be installed on your users' computers.
Additionally, even if the font is installed on your users' computers, many of these fonts look good only with particular font sizes. For instance, some fonts are good at sizes such as 10 or 12 pixels (i.e. body text), while with larger or smaller font sizes they either look distorted or are unreadable.
After all these clarifications, which were necessary so that you know you should take any lists of web safe fonts with a grain of salt, let's see which fonts made it to the list.
21 Stunning Web Safe Fonts for You to Use
Here are 21 stunning web safe fonts, which are either widely available on Windows, Mac, and Linux, or have decent substitutes. If you like one - simply copy the CSS code found in the blue box and use it yourself.
Serif
font-family:"Georgia", serif;
font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;
font-family: 'MS Serif', 'New York', sans-serif;
font-family: Garamond, serif;
font-family: 'Bookman Old Style', serif;
Sans-Serif
font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;
font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-family: 'Arial Black', Gadget, sans-serif;
font-family: 'Arial Narrow', sans-serif;
font-family: Symbol, sans-serif;
font-family: Impact, Charcoal, sans-serif;
font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;
font-family: Century Gothic, sans-serif;
font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif;
font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-family: 'MS Sans Serif', Geneva, sans-serif;
Monospace
font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;
font-family: Courier, monospace;
font-family: 'Lucida Console', Monaco, monospace;
Cursive
font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;
Comments
Grant
19:28, October 19, 2009
If they're web safe fonts, why did you make them images?
Grant
KiL
20:36, October 19, 2009
I didn't know that the "Web" means Windows... Half of the fonts are not available on a Mac.
thenonhacker
01:11, October 20, 2009
@Grant: Good point.
And please do not recommend Comic Sans!!! :-O
trice22
05:04, October 20, 2009
Stunning? Really?
Vsync
06:43, October 20, 2009
Nice article, but this is better: http://dustinbrewer.com/fonts-on-the-web-and-a-list-of-web-safe-fonts/
Greg
08:37, October 20, 2009
Stunning is a little misleading. :)
horrible
09:08, October 20, 2009
horrible list
Andris
09:33, October 20, 2009
I'm sorry, but these fonts are neither "Stunning" nor "Web safe".
Dirty Bird
09:50, October 20, 2009
Are you serious? Why did you use images? Do you have the metrics on these? Here is an actual resource with the data to back it up http://www.3point7designs.com/blog/2008/05/8-fonts-you-probably-dont-use-in-css-but-should/
Arthur Brown
09:53, October 20, 2009
I have to agree that some of these fonts are not necessarily stunning nor completely web safe, but who in the world added comic sans to this list. All the others I can deal with but comic sans? Otherwise a good list and good to see the options presented here.
Steven Howe
10:00, October 20, 2009
C O M I C S A N S ?
Are you for real???
Chad
12:20, October 20, 2009
You fail at the internet.
Inside the Webb
16:31, October 20, 2009
Very useful collection of fonts. I've been looking for free fonts to mess around with for logos, these are perfect
clippingimages
17:26, October 20, 2009
Nice collection of fonts. Maximum are common. Thanks for sharing this nice post.
Arki
06:35, October 21, 2009
Wow, which cave did you dwell in for the last 15 years?
luisinlandaes
17:26, October 22, 2009
@Vsync:
Ok Kanye West.
Paul Smart
19:41, October 22, 2009
I wouldn't have called them stunning but thanks anyway
Ali
18:15, October 23, 2009
I'd like to know the name of the font in your own headers.
dillu
11:55, November 2, 2009
century gothic rocks ....
Josh
10:46, November 29, 2009
Why does everyone skip over Helvetica when they talk about web fonts?