WebCami’s Toolbox: What’s the Closest Google Font?
If you are like me, Google Fonts is a go-to resources for all websites. They load on all devices, on mobile and desktop, Mac and PC, are built into most page builders. There is no downside to this. But clients usually have a style guide with a premium font for their printed materials. And they may or may not have that font file. If they do, you need to use a plugin like Use Any Font or something else to get the font into your website. If anything renders your plugin inactive, your website fonts will default to New Times Roman. Talk about a web designer nightmare!
I almost always send a Google Font alternative to my clients and suggest that it be used to promote a more consistent display. Clients rarely know there is a difference. Here are three methods I use to find google font alternatives for client font options:
- Google “google font alternative for BLANK” – this will give you results from other websites and you can compare and constrast
- Visit the Font Recommendations and Lists page at Typewolf. Scroll to alternative fonts.
- Visit Whats the closest Google font page. This has some basic PC fonts and alternatives to use.
The most important part of any website is that it loads properly. It’s been my experience that embedding fonts is less stable than using a Google alternative. Sometimes that’s impossible, but many times there is only a minuet difference.
What do you do about custom fonts? What plugins to you use to embed them? Do you embed with code in your CSS file? Please share!
