A font of knowledge

January 12, 2012 3:19 PM

If you've changed the default fonts on your profile, what have you changed them to?

I've chosen Franklin Gothic Medium (14pt) for the body font, and Georgia (10pt) for the smaller font, but I'm open to trying other combinations for better readability.

posted by crunchland to MetaFilter-Related at 3:19 PM (92 comments total)

Been rocking Verdana 9/Verdana 7 since 2001.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:22 PM on January 12, 2012 [3 favorites]

Body font: Cambria; smaller font : Gill Sans
posted by dhruva at 3:22 PM on January 12, 2012

Comic sans!
posted by Rodrigo Lamaitre at 3:25 PM on January 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

stavrosthewonderchicken: "Been rocking Verdana 9/Verdana 7 since 2001."

*sigh* I remember when I used to have good vision.

I'm doing Verdana 14/Verdana 10.
posted by misha at 3:28 PM on January 12, 2012

Huh? I just checked each of your profiles, and they're all 10pt Verdana, sans-serif.
Same as in town.
posted by finite at 3:37 PM on January 12, 2012

spectrum 48k
posted by sgt.serenity at 3:38 PM on January 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

*sigh* I remember when I used to have good vision.

Heh. It was kinda funny (for me) on the podcast when matt and cortex and jessamyn were talking about Gamefilter, and mathowie said something about the font size and his 'old eyes', and I was all like 'wait, it's a bigger font than he uses on Metafilter' and then I realized that I'd actually set my own font face here years and years ago and forgotten about it.

I think I bumped it up a notch or two.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:39 PM on January 12, 2012

Dingbats don't work as expected, unfortunately.
posted by scruss at 3:39 PM on January 12, 2012

Metafilter: Dingbats don't work as expected, unfortunately.
posted by found missing at 3:48 PM on January 12, 2012

Body font: Lucida Sans
Smaller font: Futura
posted by mediated self at 3:50 PM on January 12, 2012

I have Firefox set to render text only in Segoe UI 9 pt. I find it incredibly readable. I can even read light text on a black background in it, which has always sent me scurrying for Readability in the past.
posted by dfan at 3:51 PM on January 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Verdana 10/8

Body font: Cambria; smaller font : Gill Sans
posted by dhruva at 3:22 PM on January 12

Just tried yours and so much harder to read. Cambria.
posted by babbyʼ); Drop table users; -- at 3:52 PM on January 12, 2012

Huh. You can change the fonts? This post just rocked my world.
posted by anotherpanacea at 3:55 PM on January 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Segoe Script is kind of interesting. It's like my recent activity is saying, "Note: Everyone needs a hug." All the time.
posted by anotherpanacea at 4:00 PM on January 12, 2012

Verdana 10/8 here and I'm glad you posted this. I've been wondering why my home and work MeFi's look so different. I bet I'm missing fonts on one of the two systems.
posted by DU at 4:01 PM on January 12, 2012

Liberation Sans 12/10 now. A little more legibile, but kind of funny looking. There seems to be a lot of stuff that doesn't use my chosen font.
posted by DU at 4:04 PM on January 12, 2012

verdana 9/8. Inspired by this thread, I just tried changing to Calibri and remembered why I never went away from verdana: it seems many of the UI elements are hardcoded in verdana and I am apparently OCD enough that it bothers me when they don't match.
posted by juv3nal at 4:08 PM on January 12, 2012

body font: futura
smaller font: verdana
posted by oneirodynia at 4:10 PM on January 12, 2012

so much harder to read
heh. Actually I keep changing the fonts once in a while. This is what I have at present.
posted by dhruva at 4:30 PM on January 12, 2012

Tahoma 9,8 on a professional white background™. I don't remember why I chose that particular combo, but I've been using it for years.
posted by Ufez Jones at 4:32 PM on January 12, 2012

I just ran some quick queries to find the most popular fonts and sizes. Of course Verdana was far and away the winner because it's the default. But these are fonts that at least 15 users have set. Here are body fonts:

arial (381), Helvetica (329), georgia (271), tahoma (152), Calibri (111), Trebuchet MS (99), Lucida Grande (84), times new roman (77), garamond (39), helvetica neue (37), times (31), Trebuchet (29), Optima (28), segoe ui (24), comic sans (23), sans-serif (21), futura (20), bitstream vera sans (19), veranda (18), gill sans (17), Cambria (16)

And smaller fonts:

arial (365), Helvetica (304), georgia (183), tahoma (148), calibri (99), lucida grande (82), trebuchet ms (72), times new roman (55), Helvetica Neue (38), Times (27), Garamond (25), trebuchet (23), sans-serif (22), optima (21), geneva (20), Segoe ui (19), futura (18), gill sans (17), bitstream vera sans (17), Courier (17)

Body sizes (after the default 10):

12 (19584), 11 (855), 14 (307), 9 (288), 8 (118), 13 (111), 16 (73), 15 (27), 18 (24)

Small sizes (after the default 8)

10 (20219), 9 (1110), 12 (282), 11 (153), 7 (132), 14 (57), 6 (35)
posted by pb (staff) at 4:37 PM on January 12, 2012 [8 favorites]

I just upped the Segoe UI count by one. Thank you, dfan.
posted by vidur at 4:43 PM on January 12, 2012

veranda!
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 4:51 PM on January 12, 2012 [2 favorites]

I never noticed you could change the font!

Off to fiddle...
posted by Xany at 5:07 PM on January 12, 2012

comic sans (23)

Wow. MetaFilter in comic sans.

Even flameouts must seem kind of goofy and good-natured.
posted by Salvor Hardin at 5:18 PM on January 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

calibri 14/12
posted by Foci for Analysis at 5:35 PM on January 12, 2012

rockwell 10/12
cus, you know, I rock well.
posted by NoraCharles at 5:38 PM on January 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Helvetia, baby.

Barring that, Myriad Pro.
posted by 4ster at 5:40 PM on January 12, 2012

Commerce SSI
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 5:50 PM on January 12, 2012

...which, I just noticed, isn't actually installed on this computer. So it's anybody's guess what font I'm really using.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 5:52 PM on January 12, 2012

Helvetica Neue represent!
posted by birdherder at 5:57 PM on January 12, 2012

Segoe
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 6:08 PM on January 12, 2012

Verdana 10/Verdana 8 for ages. What's reputed to be the most legible/readable font that's easy on the eyes?
posted by arcticseal at 6:11 PM on January 12, 2012

I like the default for the main text, but I pair it with Helvetica for the smaller text because I enjoy the extra contrast between comments and bylines.
posted by Houyhnhnm at 6:11 PM on January 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

As naive a CSS question as a naive CSS question can get: why don't web sites allow you to point to your own CSS file?
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:17 PM on January 12, 2012

I use Georgia 12/Georgia 10. It's been so long since I set it this way, I can't imagine anything different.
posted by muddgirl at 6:18 PM on January 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Verdana 12/10. It's always so disconcerting to see everything smaller when I use a computer where I'm not logged in.
posted by chiababe at 6:22 PM on January 12, 2012

Trebuchet MS 12/10 because, hey, trebuchets are cool!
posted by deborah at 6:28 PM on January 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

CRONOS PRO FOR LIFE. 15/12
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:28 PM on January 12, 2012

My boyfriend uses either Georgia or Cambria or something similar in 14/12 and I always have a moment of panic if I check MeFi on his phone or computer because I think something got hacked, or something. It's a good way to figure out whose account is logged in, though.
posted by Phire at 6:31 PM on January 12, 2012

I had Dream Orphans for years, but changed it to Book Antiqua because I couldn't see the dots on lower case j's.
posted by jamjam at 6:51 PM on January 12, 2012

̥̩̬̼̮͖ͩͮͦͣ̋Z̟̼͙̭̖̗̬ͩ̅́̾̊̔́ͅA͖̗̪̅̈́ͫͪ̐͆͌ͯ͘ͅL̗̙̻̞̝͊̂̃̃̀̌̊́̕G̫̞̼ͫ͒̎́̀́̀Ó̶̭͚̘͔̞͆̂ͨͦ!̷͎̖͛ͮ͗́̾̄̔̌ͩ́
posted by Sailormom at 6:54 PM on January 12, 2012 [3 favorites]

I'm really digging Segoe UI, dfan. It's really readable, and it looks great in bold. Thanks for replying!
posted by crunchland at 6:55 PM on January 12, 2012

I've been Verdana 12/10 for as long as I can remember. That's the only thing I really disagree with about the default UI for the site; I don't like the way the text looks at 10/8. But then I like a big browser window, so the larger font size doesn't fill things up too quickly I suppose.

I flirted with a couple other fonts briefly a few years back but couldn't stick with it. It occurs to me that it'd be an interesting (and maybe maddening?) experiment to set up a script to change the site font to a new typeface at random every day—see if the site has different flavors from day to day when the presentation is show shifting and unreliable.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:09 PM on January 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Been hooked on Bookman Old Style ever since I first found it in Microsoft Office. Before that, I had used Bookman Bold Swash (rub-on lettering) for the logo of a personal newsletter because it let me play with the W and n in Wendell in a cool way. Still love Bookman (I only buy Ken's Salad Dressings), so seeing MetaFilter in that font feels like home. I can't believe at least 15 other MeFites are with me on that.
posted by oneswellfoop at 7:10 PM on January 12, 2012

Calibri.

Don't be hatin'
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 7:23 PM on January 12, 2012

CRONOS PRO

Why didn't somebody tell me?
posted by Kronos_to_Earth at 7:36 PM on January 12, 2012 [2 favorites]

Droid Sans all the way. ((Works wonderfully on my netbook. Though I really should look at Futura. I could use a little Art Deco...))
posted by CrystalDave at 7:41 PM on January 12, 2012

Our corporate font is Frutiger and I actually quite like it, so I use it for MeFi.
posted by mkb at 7:45 PM on January 12, 2012

(although I switched to Optima on this new personal machine that doesn't have Frutiger)
posted by mkb at 7:48 PM on January 12, 2012

Oh, sweet, I can turn all of you into Comic Sans forever. Suffer!
posted by furiousthought at 7:59 PM on January 12, 2012

Wow you guys have much better eye sight than me (or sit a lot closer to the screen).

Gill Sans/16 and Lucida Grande 14. (1080 needs big font size!)
posted by tksh at 8:01 PM on January 12, 2012

Verdana 12pt.
posted by IndigoRain at 8:11 PM on January 12, 2012

I've always known I could change the font, but I've always been too afraid too. Because then it wouldn't look like MetaFilter.
posted by Curious Artificer at 8:16 PM on January 12, 2012 [3 favorites]

Papyrus to match the Avatar costume I am currently wearing. It was pretty easy to set up, I just plugged my fiber optic hair penis straight into the USB port.
posted by nathancaswell at 8:31 PM on January 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Helvetica 10/8 4 life.
posted by ArmyOfKittens at 8:59 PM on January 12, 2012

Verdana 12 and Verdana 10. So very easy to read that way!
posted by Lynsey at 9:37 PM on January 12, 2012

Recently I like Bitstream Charter 10, Delicious 8.
posted by en forme de poire at 9:47 PM on January 12, 2012

Just switched to Segoe UI, wow!
posted by arcticseal at 10:08 PM on January 12, 2012

why don't web sites allow you to point to your own CSS file?

Because they know that people who really want to do this can just use stylish.
posted by flabdablet at 10:33 PM on January 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

I've left my profile fonts at default settings, but I usually scale the whole site to 160% using NoSquint.
posted by flabdablet at 10:36 PM on January 12, 2012

Ruh Roh. On my edit profile page the font options are just text boxes--I can type anything in there and it doesn't seem to change the font. [firefox on ubuntu]. ?
Also, Segoe UI is a Microsoft joint; if I want to be just that little bit nerdier/cooler, what should I use? (If I can figure out how.)
posted by Mngo at 1:37 AM on January 13, 2012

Helvetica! It's purdy and you can feel like a Mac user.
posted by ArmyOfKittens at 1:44 AM on January 13, 2012

And I've just noticed that I'm at work and that my laptop here doesn't have Helvetica on it so it's probably defaulted to Arial or something. Still. The pixels are so teeny it's hard to tell.

Disclaimer: I've had exactly zero sleep. I'm actually quite impressed I can still see in colour, let alone know where I am, or take accurate screenshots.
posted by ArmyOfKittens at 1:49 AM on January 13, 2012

ArmyOfKittens, there's another MeTa thread nearby that can help you.

But if it's my profile settings that are keeping you awake, I can report that it does seem to work if I correctly input a font that's on my system. FWIW, Gentium is not especially readable.
posted by Mngo at 1:51 AM on January 13, 2012

Verdana 10/8. It feels the most natural to me, but there's a downside: my SO has one of those massive Mac monitors and I hate reading Metafilter on it because everything looks bold. I CTRL-minus a few times, the bold effect goes away, and then I need an electron microscope to read the damn thing.
posted by Chichibio at 2:02 AM on January 13, 2012

SEGOE ALL THE THINGS
posted by theredpen at 6:30 AM on January 13, 2012

Liberation Sans all night long.
posted by introp at 7:00 AM on January 13, 2012

I guess I always knew you could do this, but thanks to this thread I paid it attention. I changed it to Verdana 12/10 yesterday before leaving work (and before I found out it the font/size of choice of many) and wasn't sure how I felt about it. But when I opened it at my desk this morning, having walked away from it, I was so pleased with the result. This thread has changed my life for the better.

(This probably says more about my life than anything else.)
posted by MCMikeNamara at 8:24 AM on January 13, 2012

Tell Me No Lies: "As naive a CSS question as a naive CSS question can get: why don't web sites allow you to point to your own CSS file?"

web sites themselves might not, but if you're a firefox user, there's always Stylish
posted by namewithoutwords at 8:26 AM on January 13, 2012

Didot 10/8
posted by Lutoslawski at 8:33 AM on January 13, 2012

I just changed my small text to Comic Sans MS and it is... awesome? Maybe? It makes everyone's posts seem more cheerful!
posted by muddgirl at 8:37 AM on January 13, 2012

Bitstream Vera Sans
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 9:30 AM on January 13, 2012

Ruritania and Vivaldi
posted by y2karl at 10:46 AM on January 13, 2012

I use Georgia for everything. Though... I should probably reassess that decision someday.
posted by jeffamaphone at 10:46 AM on January 13, 2012

Verdana 10/8, but I just tried Verdana 12/10 on my crap work monitor and I think I might actually like it better. Not at home, though. Never.
posted by penduluum at 11:10 AM on January 13, 2012

Arial Rounded MT Bold!
posted by yellowbinder at 11:46 AM on January 13, 2012

BTW is there a Greasemonkey script to set font for specific users? It would be nice to see mods in a more official font, or people who irritate me (not you, never you) in Comic Sans.
posted by yellowbinder at 11:48 AM on January 13, 2012 [2 favorites]

all mods should appear in Thriller
posted by nathancaswell at 12:27 PM on January 13, 2012

I too am a Georgia 12/10 fellow. I changed based on a thread almost exactly like this one in MeTa 3 or 4 years ago.
posted by Rhomboid at 3:57 PM on January 13, 2012

I just changed it to Segoe 12/Verdana 10. And I think I need to hug whoever it is that said "Segoe" first in this thread. Because MY GOSH I love it. Soooooo much easier to read.
posted by SMPA at 8:38 PM on January 13, 2012

Late to the shindig, but my use of verdana/verdana makes me feel like one of the crowd and my use of 13/11 makes me feel damn blind. Which I am.
posted by item at 7:38 AM on January 14, 2012

Verdana 12/10 here too. I am set in my ways and nothing properly says Internet like Verdana. Nothing says "favorite website" like not even needing my glasses for the text. Ah, nice.

I know I can change to different fonts, and I may even like those different fonts, but if I do that, it won't look like Metafilter anymore and I'll be confused.
posted by cmyk at 11:27 PM on January 14, 2012

I had NO IDEA you could do this.

I just changed mine to Impact. It looks horrible.
posted by delmoi at 12:10 AM on January 15, 2012

Okay, I'm an idiot. For some reason I read this post and thought that it meant we could change the font people see when they view our profiles.

I'd always left it on Verdana, but I just changed it to Open Sans, which I had downloaded and installed off Google's open font thing a while ago. Now it looks gorgeous.
posted by delmoi at 12:14 AM on January 15, 2012

Just tried Segoe. Open Sans is is much nicer, although there is a lot less negative space then with Segoe, if that's what you like about it.
posted by delmoi at 12:16 AM on January 15, 2012

Calibri.

Don't be hatin'

I love me some Calibri for small fonts purposes. The whole batch of fonts MS commissioned for Office 2007 is great.

I rock Optima 9 and Calibri 8.
posted by spitefulcrow at 7:40 PM on January 15, 2012

I can also report that Chivo 10/Roboto Condensed 8 is a beautiful combo.
posted by en forme de poire at 9:44 PM on January 15, 2012

Segoe Ui for me too.

Where I differ is that I run it at 16px. If you're not doing this, give it a go. Seems weird at first, but 16 is a great font size for reading.
posted by seanyboy at 2:34 AM on January 16, 2012

Also, any chance of a font size breakdown from the guys in charge.
posted by seanyboy at 2:36 AM on January 16, 2012

Hey, am I right that some things on the site don't pick up the new font? I'm using a sans right now, but the dates dividing the blue, and the words "my profile" on my profile, show up in something serif.
(also it would be a nice pony if the logo changed as well just kidding)
posted by Mngo at 1:30 PM on January 19, 2012

Yeah, some text on the site has the font hardwired. Your font preferences apply to the post and comment text and the bylines under them. You could always use something like Stylish to override anything on the page if it's bugging you.
posted by pb (staff) at 1:43 PM on January 19, 2012