So, when you're reading, even the little things contribute to your experience. As a writer, I'm well aware of that. I'm on a quest to find the optimal fonts and colors for forum reading to that end, to make my posting and literature more enjoyable for others to read. That said, I have no idea where to start other than to ask others: What are your favorite fonts and sizes for bulk reading?What colors do you find most appealing to read in?
Whatever you do, use a sans-serif font. I myself have become partially accustomed to Verdana 10-point font (or 9-point if I'm reading a lot), largely on a whim, and partly by discovering it by accident. As for colours, I prefer white text on a dark background (if I can), or otherwise black-on-white. I'm fairly plain-spoke like that. Since I'm on forums, the white text on dark backgrounds tend to be more common, though I work in Microsoft Word and Notepad often, and that is black-on-white by default. I don't distinctly prefer one over the other, however.
Yeah, I've heard sans-serif fonts are pretty good. Verdana? I'll give it a shot. The reason I asked about colors though is that the forum background can vary by person since we've got a few different themes. Sometimes the grey text is difficult to read in bulk, and I find other colored texts easier to read, but I'm not sure why.
My work place's default typeface is Century Gothic and it's really grown on me. I used to stick to Arial but I find my self defaulting to Century Gothic personal projects too!
I prefer Ariel for common writing. It is standard and you can't go wrong with using it, unless the assignment requires times Roman. I don't go fancy with my fonts usually either so a basic one is nice.
Times New Roman is one of my preferred ones, other than that Verdana is nice on the eyes. I would stay away from fancy fonts as they can get jumbled up a bit when reading large amounts of text. I prefer light text on dark backgrounds, as it feels much easier om my eyes.
It's generally considered important to use a lighter font weight and wider kerning setting on body text. This is what helps to subtley break the text into a pattern that is better for the eye to move through. I usually choose Open Sans, in "Light" with 10 kerning (you don't want to go too much but 0 is uncomfortable in comparison). I think a lot of people shy away from the less than regular font weights but its really quite nice for body text. (You can also consider a little extra leading too) I don't really know if this will be applicable on a forum like this though, in those cases strong contrast and not going too small is the best you can usually do with the options available. The forum theme generally already allows for this well with white against navy blue and generously sized text.
