In the web design world, it has become an accepted precept that sans
serif fonts are better for condensed body copy, and in the world of print, serif fonts are
better for longer passages of type. This is, however, a myth that has yet to be proved conclusively
either way, but you can see an example of the difference in Figure 2-2.
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2
3. The term greek is technically false (lorem ipsum is Latin), but it has been slowly converted into a
slang verb by thousands of designers and marketing folk looking to quickly fill a block of
content without actual text.
Figure 2-2. The text on the right could appear on a website; the text on the left is formatted
for print.
Several studies have been conducted, all of them producing virtually imperceptible,
almost anecdotal evidence supporting both arguments. For typography on the Web, we
can deduce the following:
In general, people prefer serif fonts when they were sized higher than normal,
around 12 to 14 points.
Above 12 points, most fonts of any family are perfectly readable. At smaller sizes,
sans serifs slightly edge out serifs in terms of readability, but this has a lot to do
with the inability of most computer screens to elegantly render the subtleties of
serif fonts.
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