I do. Love letters, that is. The tender shape of the “s”, the strong curve of the “G”, the broad back of the “m,” all these and more draw my eye and fill my mind. Which is one of the things that makes web design so tedious.

I look forward to discovering new, beautiful, fonts. I dig through the collections of hundreds (even thousands) of fonts on the CDs at the local discount store, hunting for the one or two diamonds among the piles of garbage offered for sale.

Fonts are, after all, the “voice” of written communications. The choice of font affects the message just as the tone of voice. It’s hard to take you serious if the information you have is presented in “Comic Sans” or “Marker Felt” or the like. Similarly, royal pronouncements seem so much more royal in a black letter font.

But font selection brings more than such unsubtle effects to the table. Fonts such as Baskerville bring an old stateliness to the message that a newer font, such as Stempel Garamond cannot. The broad shoulders of Cooper Black lack subtlety, but they make up for it in emphasis. Copperplate brings a touch of the Industrial Revolution with it, and can anything say “elegance” more clearly than Dorchester Script?

The choice of a font is the difference between hearing a high school forensics competitor deliver Kennedy’s Inaugural Address, and hearing JFK himself do it. No matter how the student may try, there’s something missing, something more delivered by the Real Thing. (“Let the word go forth …” still sends chills down my spine.) The words are magic, true, and the message is still there. But I don’t feel like going out and taking on the universe after the forensics meet is over.

So, how do we bring that extra bit of life and love to our web designs? Oh, there are attempts like WEFT and TrueDoc, but they’ve never really caught on. The problem is download time. A picture may indeed be worth a thousand words, but the words will download faster and render quicker.

And beyond that, monitors lack the pixel density to adequately render any serif except a slab serif, so delicate lines (such as in Dorchester) become horrid and spindly.

So are we stuck with Verdana and Georgia forever? Let’s pretend we aren’t, at the very least. When designing for the web, design with the right typeface for the message. That way, if the user happens to be among the enlightened souls who would appreciate it, your work can be seen (and printed) in all its proper glory.

For example, in a current project I’m designing with Luna ITC for all the display type, (body typeface is Gill Sans, proof of my ongoing addiction to that face more than anything else). I know less than 1% of the audience will have it, but that’s OK. I’ve also tested with its fallback fonts, so I know the design will still work, though not as well, even with the inferior typefaces.

I’m not suggesting we design only for the right type. That would be dangerously stupid. In addition to whatever font you’ve selected as the best choice, your design should also work in Helvetica, Times, and Geneva. (Verdana and Georgia, since thay are built for low-res devices like monitors, are a little more difficult to fit in, but you should make the attempt. For two views on Verdana see Stephen Poley and Daniel Will-Harris. I don’t expect to change anyone’s mind about them, so I make sure my designs can accomodate them.) All I’m saying is that you should include the right type in your font-family attribute; that way those of us who appreciate good typography can get an additional treat from your site.