The future of digital typography

Exploring the benefits of serif typefaces

The design community generally accepts that serif fonts are for print, and sans-serif fonts are for screen. Why? Serifs allow for easier reading as they make each letter more distinguishable. Sans-serifs are used for screens because serifs are often so fine that they would be hard to see on screens because of the pixel density. Things have changed a lot, though. When this was first hypothesised, screens didn’t have quite as many pixels as they do now. The Apple PowerBook G3, released in 1997 had a 800x600 display. Now, however, we have laptops with resolutions of 2560x1600 and higher. That’s quite an increase.

Pixels these days are almost microscopic. So why are we still using sans-serif fonts everywhere when our displays are more than capable of showing serifs? Serifs are perceived as being old-fashioned, however they are starting to creep back into the world.

Personally I reckon serifs are a good idea for body text, but unless you want your website or whatever you’re making to look completely hipster, it’s probably a good idea to use serif typefaces in moderation. Hopefully we’ll be seeing a lot more apps and websites that we spend time on moving to serifs — because they truly do improve readability.