Newegg trying to use Helvetica font again
Posted January 20, 2011 by Nick Vogt in Web and Internet
They did it once before in early 2010 and switched back. Just recently, in the last day or so, they've done it again. The product search result pages and product pages have changed over mostly to Helvetica, while the default font elsewhere remains Verdana.
Now don't get me wrong, Helvetica is a nice font, but it isn't optimized for non-smoothed display. Meaning, if you're not using screen font "edge smoothing" or an equivalent, Helvetica ends up looking pretty horrid. Here is an example (current default Helvetica on top; Arial edited in with Chrome developer tools on bottom):
Newegg isn't alone in doing this sort of thing. Adobe is using a font that doesn't look good without smoothing as well, and I know other big names have done it in the past.
Non-smoothed fonts may not be that common anymore, but I still prefer it and I always make sure my designs look good with smoothing both on and off (every designer should).
Now don't get me wrong, Helvetica is a nice font, but it isn't optimized for non-smoothed display. Meaning, if you're not using screen font "edge smoothing" or an equivalent, Helvetica ends up looking pretty horrid. Here is an example (current default Helvetica on top; Arial edited in with Chrome developer tools on bottom):
Newegg isn't alone in doing this sort of thing. Adobe is using a font that doesn't look good without smoothing as well, and I know other big names have done it in the past.
Non-smoothed fonts may not be that common anymore, but I still prefer it and I always make sure my designs look good with smoothing both on and off (every designer should).
| Tags | newegg |
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