Compared with the world of print, the Web is a typographically impoverished place. It was built to display the fonts that users already have loaded on their computers, which in practice means the 10 "core fonts for the Web" that Microsoft started bundling with its Windows operating system in 1996. A few of these fonts are admirable--Verdana and Georgia, for example, which were designed by Matthew Carter specifically for the computer screen. But as the Web grows more sophisticated, and as the need to improve on-screen legibility becomes more urgent, they are far from sufficient.

You may not have noticed the problem--in part because the Web is filled with flashy headlines and logos, which can be more visually diverse because designers display them as images. But significantly absent are the workhorse text faces that occupied the great type designers of the past five centuries, like Garamond, Caslon, and Baskerville. These typefaces were sturdy and legible, graced with small but essential touches that elicit a curious passion in designers and laypeople alike. Fonts speak to people, probably because they give form to their written words. People brag about their favorite font and complain about the awful one their boss makes them use. Corporations are believers, too: they regularly commission expensive new fonts to lend flattering associations to their brands, and they wish they could do the same online.