Multimedia Fonts
What Makes a Good Multimedia Font? The basics outlined in this feature are meant to give a general idea of what details can help optimize the legibility of your text in multimedia applications. They do not cover all situations, such as special fonts designed particularly for very small point sizes on screen, resolution of individual viewers’ monitors, etc. The same is true of the application suggestions: they are only the basics, meant to give you hints as you design your Internet page, presentation, or other multimedia application. Clicking on any font pictured here (other than Linotype Facts of Life) will bring you to the corresponding page of our online shop, where you can purchase and download them immediately. The Internet has allowed us to transmit information all over the world. One page or site might be viewed billions of times a month, week, or even day. A presentation projected on a large screen to a room full of possible business partners can bring big changes for you and your company. When one single piece of work can reach so many people and be so consequential, it is important that the information you wish to transmit comes across clearly, requiring not only thoughtful and concise writing, but also a thoughtful choice of typography. Form and Spacing To display a text legibly on a screen, the letters of the chosen typeface should present open and unmistakable forms in both small and middle point sizes. Lower case letters like ’a’ and ’e’ can be especially problematic. Small white areas within letters like these often rob them of their unmistakable character on screen. Such figures should therefore be open in design, ideally optimized especially for use on a screen. 
Another aspect to be considered is the spacing between letters. To be legible on screen, fonts in small point sizes require more space before and after each character than they would need for a printed document. This helps preserve the distinctness of individual characters and prevents their contours from blending together. Serif and Sans Serif Serif typefaces were originally developed for print. This makes some serif fonts less than ideal for multimedia applications but does not exclude them completely. Serif fonts should be used in middle or larger point sizes on screen and the character spacing must take the forms of the serifs into special consideration in order to preserve their form and the legibility of the typeface on the whole. 
Numerals It is sometimes easy to mistake the numerals 3, 6, 8, and 9 for one another even in print. Making sure that the basic forms of the 6 and the 9, the 3 and the 8, differ from one another can improve the distinctness of one from the other, as in the example of Bell Gothic below. Old style figures like those in the sample of Dyadis have a distinctive look and can help keep numerals legible on screen. 
Stroke Weight Particular attention must be paid to the font weights used for multimedia applications. Extremely light weights are often just as illegible on screen as extremely bold. May condensed weights cannot present their distinguishing characteristics on a screen and the fine differences in italic weights can be lost on the audience of a Web page or screen presentation. Application It would be impossible to list here the optimal uses and point sizes of all the fonts in the Linotype Library, but there are a couple things you could keep in mind when designing your page, presentation, etc. To ensure legibility in the body text, try starting with your chosen font in a point size of 18 or so. You can then reduce the point size, keeping in mind the factors mentioned above which will affect the legibility of the text, or increase it, if these considerations are still not met to your satisfaction. These pointers relate for the most part to fonts used for the body text. Those for headline or symbol fonts depend on the application and the amount of detail in the characters. And don’t forget to make sure that the colors you use for the font and the background allow the font to remain legible! As a general rule, darker characters on a lighter background tend to better maintain the distinctness of the characters. From Linotype The Linotype Library contains a number of fonts which are well-suited for use in the new media. The clear, recognizable characters and distinct forms of Frutiger, for example, will make both body text and headlines legible. 
Here a few examples: 
Linotype Facts of Life
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We reserve the right of errors and changes.
We reserve the right of errors and changes.