Words. Text. You’re reading text now. If you’re a professionally trained designer then you can probably recall the long lectures and struggles dealing with the different types of fonts, sizes and placement alongside imagery. Weighting and columnar placement and usage. The right font style, size and placement on your website is perhaps one of the single most critical design decisions you can make. You can easily fragment a whole brand strategy through the selection of the wrong font.

Studies have shown that on a computer screen we read “sans serif” fonts better, such as Verdanna (which most sites use) or Arial (Microsofts version of Helvetica.) In printed matter, fonts such as Book Antiqua or Times are better, as they allow an easier flow over the page. I once spent $30,000 to determine the best corporate fonts for printed materials. The result of our research indicated Book Antiqua for body text and Arial for headers.

When looking at website design, and that includes developing corporate blogs, it is advisable to consult your corporate Brand Guidelines manual. If you don’t have such a critical document, then see if you have standardized by default on other marketing materials and try to have your designer find a font that compliments your corporate standard in printed matter (including letters and proposals) as a starting point. This may also influence your overall design. It can be tricky and there are many factors at play.

But without doubt, the right font will help add an entire level of depth to your site. Print on buttons used for navigation should be considered in line with body text and headers should be the same. It’s also important to be consistent throughout the site and any attendant blogs, or it can lead to confusion. If you’re designing Landing Pages they should be the same as well. When implementing Microsites, you have more room to play, since they may be product or campaign specific.