Fonts: What are your thoughts?

If we're talkin' online stuff, I use Verdana exclusively for body copy. Why? It was created by Microsoft just for screen use. You see, the human eye is strained an extra 20% or so reading screen type as compared to print. Using a print type, like Helvetica or Arial, simply adds to that eye strain. But Verdana (and its serif counterpart, Georgia) are more "open" designs. The spacing in and around each character a just a little bit bigger.

For headlines, I really like Impact, a sans serif font. It's got a compact width which allows for either really big type or lots of type in any given space. My second choice would be Helvetica or Tahoma.

If you're fixing your font size with CSS, do consider your audience. I keep my body copy at a 14px minimum and increase it with the age of my audience. Some of my copy can be very long. I want to make sure readers can make it through to the "buy now" button.

The most important factor in deciding on a screen font, is to not choose something so exotic that you're the only one on the planet who can see it. If the reader doesn't have the font installed on his computer, he gets the default font instead.

In print, I'm a Times kind of guy when it comes to body copy. Just about any of the aforementioned fonts will work well for headlines.

Hope that helps.

Roger