Hi there. So lately web fonts are pretty cool for making things look purdier; I wanted to discuss OTS’ choice of them.
The style guide mentions HvD Pluto, however this is a proprietary font, and I don’t see it used anywhere. Luckily there are heaps of awesome fonts around these days that are open source or free to use; so I think we can make use of those instead without worrying about licensing issues.
I’ve noticed that instead almost the entire http://www.opentechschool.org website is in Montserrat. I’m not 100% what font is used for the logos as they have been rasterized to image (Pluto?).
Most Heading and Logo type I’ve used has been in Montserrat, and I’ve also continued to use it as the defacto tutorial heading font.
On the blog, it seems Proxima Nova is attempted to be used but the Adobe TypeKit js for it no longer runs.
I’d like to point out both Python Beginners and Html-Css-beginners tutorials make use of Open Sans for their body, and the former currently uses Source Code Pro for monospace (font for code).
One of the reasons Open Sans is great as a body font, apart from being clear and easy to read, is it has very many symbols, which should let it work nicely on translated text in european languages. Some contenders are PT Sans and Source Sans Pro.
So my basic premise is this: it would be nice to standardize around a good set of fonts (e.g Heading, body, monospace) and adopt those around our sites. I think wide usage like this definitely helps build a brand look in people’s minds.
Some of the best places to find free fonts atm:
http://openfontlibrary.org/
http://html.adobe.com/edge/webfonts/ (note, not typekit proper, that is basically paid)
Note that a font needs to be under a permissive license such as OFL to be truly free to use however we want.
Desirables (imho):
Heading font - Looks awesome. Used for logos and stuff (montserrat current defacto)
Body font - easy and non-tiresome to read, works in many languages (I propose Open Sans, PT Sans also looks good)
Monospace font - makes our code look great (Source Code Pro looks great, there are a few others)
There is also the issue of just normal prose text could use a serif font instead, otherwise you could use sans everywhere. For instance, maybe a serif font would look good on the blog.
I might be opening a barrell of worms, but changing the header could also be used to change the look of the OTS Logo currently. One suggestion is Cantarell which I looks great in this role.
Anyway, I’d like to hear people’s thoughts on the matter, what they think about standardizing on a set of fonts, and any opinions on which!
Cheers, Matt