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General Discussion

Posted by Darren Knight
Darren Knight
4,393 Points

Web Fonts: Pros and Cons

I am curious to know the pros and cons of using a webfont that is not very common. I am looking at using Gotham on my site and I am wondering if this is a good idea for browser compatibility?

2 Answers

Alejandro Cavazos
Alejandro Cavazos
4,250 Points
Alejandro Cavazos
Alejandro Cavazos
4,250 Points

The biggest drawback from web fonts are load times. Having 3 or more types of linked fonts, you will notice some impact on the page. There are some tricks to force browsers to cache this information but since they are tricks, it is tricky to accomplish it. And talking about compatibility, this is what fall-back fonts are for. Simple declare additional fonts so that if the first one is not available, it loads the next one, like this:

.body {
  font-family: "Gotham", sans-serif, serif;
}

This will make it so that if Gotham is not available, it will use a sans-serif font instead. If this one is not available "that would be strage", it will use a serif font.

Darren Knight
Darren Knight
4,393 Points
Darren Knight
Darren Knight
4,393 Points

Thanks. That's what I was thinking, but I just wanted to check since I am still a bit of a newbie.