I’m a type junkie and fall solidly into the sans serif camp. While happy that UVic has kept Myriad Pro for it’s Edge roll out, I feel that whoever picked this font to start with was taking the easy road because this is the font used by Apple. Climbing on the shoulders of giants I guess.
With a free evening to set up my OAC site, obviously I concerned myself with the look of the thing as opposed to the content (don’t judge). Being a font nerd, I started with a little research that I’ll share below.
The WordPress Codex is a resource is part of the WordPress site and acts as the online WordPress manual. I started my search for the ultimate font here. The article on playing with fonts led me to a web style guide that had a great image comparing common print fonts to common web fonts. In general, typefaces designed specifically for legibility on the computer screen have exaggerated x-heights and are very robust compared to more traditional typefaces in the same point size.
I continued my search for the best font in true scientific fashion, by Googling “best fonts for wordpress.” I hit on two sites that weren’t overtly trying to get me to buy anything. I found a short guide to font selection which was a good design refresher and then paydirt! Recommendations of fonts combinations with accompanying images!
My top choices are Roboto Slab/Roboto and Quattrocento/Quattrocento Sans. I installed the Google fonts option that OAC provides and was a bit dismayed that only Roboto was on the list. At least now I’ve narrowed the field and just need to pick a header combination that rocks the most. For now I’ve picked Ubuntu. Let me know what you think.