You can select the type of font you want to use, whether it's bold or not, how big it is, and you can even change the color and add different spacing or decorations to it. You can modify how your HTML text appears in many ways using CSS. How text is formatted affects how readable your designs and webpages are. (An rule in CSS works as well, but generally results in poorer performance for third-party fonts.Choosing the right font is an important first step in making your website usable and accessible. Loading Custom Fontsįonts from web font services are most commonly added to a website with a reference in the HTML. This is a clever way to save page weight when only a few specific characters, words or phrases of a special font are needed. Use Only What You Needįont services also offer the option to load only the specific characters needed, rather than the full font file. The browser saves those files and uses them on other websites without downloading them again. One of the benefits of third-party web font services is that the font files may have already been downloaded by the user's browser during a visit to another website. Google Fonts is the most widely used, but there are other similar services.Īpply asynchronous CSS and resource hints for the speediest Google Fonts. While appropriately-licensed custom fonts can be self hosted, web font services leverage the power of CDNs and include options like custom character sets. Web browsers won't load font files that don't apply to the current media conditions, conserving that page weight.įor example, to avoid loading resources for a special heading font on mobile devices, that font-family can be limited to larger screens: HTML Īnd: CSS /*- special font on larger screens -*/ (min-width:62em) Font Services To further reduce the number of fonts loaded on slower mobile networks and devices, custom fonts can be limited to larger screens or other conditions with HTML media attributes and CSS queries. Limit custom web fonts to ~4 total font variants for optimal page speed.įor example, one font for (1) general paragraph text plus (2) bold and (3) italic styles, with another font for (4) headings and other distinctive text elements. In most cases a good general rule is to use one font style for headings and one for regular paragraph text, with a sensible limit of four to six total font variants. The size of the needed files varies among fonts so the best balance for speed will depend on the particular fonts used. Largely due to simplified methods for adding fonts to websites, custom fonts have become very common across the web and it can be tempting to use fonts too liberally.Īlthough variable fonts are becoming more standard, each additional traditional font or font variant typically means an additional file, so shrewd choices about which fonts really make an impact and which can be omitted will reduce page weight - usually with little to no negative effect on overall user experience. Unique custom web fonts can be a great design enhancement and add a valuable layer of visual interest, but with the benefit comes the performance trade-off and potential load time pitfalls. It's no secret that a stylish website design strengthens the impact of it's message and can make an important impact on user experience and various forms of conversion like sales, lead capture email signups and more. Reduce & Optimize Web Fonts For Page SpeedĪlthough often overlooked, reducing and optimizing how web fonts are loaded is a great opportunity to improve page speed and refine design style for a better all-around user experience.
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