pixel-sized vs percentage / em sized fonts

nrg_alpha

I am reading more and more about web designers heading in the direction of using pixel-based font sizes (as opposed to percentage or em based). You can check out these two short articles here and here as examples.

To make it short and sweet, those who advocate pixel-based font sizes contend that browsers are becoming increasingly more capable of scaling everything up in unison (font and graphics). Couple that with more design control over font appearances, some designers are going against the grain with regards to traditional web design keeping text-only scalability in mind. Whether this will start a new and influential school of thought amongst other designers remains to be seen.

Out of curiosity... Do you designers out there advocate pixel size based fonts only, or do you think precentage / em based font sizes are the best way to go even in the face of ever improving browser scaling capabilities?

NogDog

Well, I can't claim to really be a "designer", but I prefer to set the base font size using points (pt) in the body selector, and then use percentages in all other selectors, those percentages being calculated against that base font size. (Why points? Because I spent several years a long time ago in the typesetting business, plus I feel like pixel size is too closely tied to the hardware.)

rulian

When I worked in an ad agency, I used px based to adhere to their design standards. They really hated any deviation from their JPEGS to the actual site which mean font sizes had to be exact. It was a pain in the ass to do since photoshop does fonts alot better then browsers do.

NogDog

And no matter what you do, you're still stuck with the issues of whether any given browser on any given computer has the font(s) you want to use installed, whether the user has usability settings or personal styles that override your font settings, etc.; yet the art departments insist on delivering layouts with precise, to-the-exact-pixel dimensions and throw a tantrum when the poor guy who has to implement it in HTML is off by a pixel somewhere.

We would run into the same thing in the typesetting business when proofs would come back with notes from the print layout designer about things like the space between a title and a paragraph being 29 points instead of 30 points, which we might have done to make everything fit within the printable area of the page. And of course, nobody in the world would have noticed except that designer, who actually had to measure it with a ruler to detect that it was off by 1/72nd of an inch. :rolleyes:

nrg_alpha

Well, for me personally, I do not advocate pixel size based fonts. My reasons are as follows:

not all browsers scale everything up nicely. Some browers either
a) scale images like crap, (a perfect example is Opera) or
b) take speed performance hits.
sites that are designed for a fixed width size with a tight squeeze on a 1024x768 monitor (yes I know, wide screen is becoming the norm.. but there still are CRT monitors out there) upscaling everything will mean the need to scroll horizontally as well as vertically (generally speaking, horizontal scrolling is frowned upon and is a no-no).
even with enough room and smooth graphic up scaling, some users may only want to see larger text larger, and not need nor want / care to see anything else get scaled along with it (I for one am in that boat).
some designers may think a certain font size is a comfortable one, all the while some viewers may wish it was a notch larger.

I personally think (and this is strictly my opinion here) that as 'designers' we should build layouts with the flexibility of text only resizing in mind. This allows the best of both worlds. Perhaps I'm wrong in my thinking, but to neglect this IMO implies either laziness, reckless design practices with no regards to accessibility or focusing too much on font setup perfection to an anal degree for the sake of beauty over form and function (honestly, what is perfection on the web? I have yet to see it).

Nog and rulian, I sympathize with you guys the stress you had to do through. I really hope this movement of pixel based font sizes does not become too heavily embraced. There is no harm in offering the best of both worlds so to speak. If it's not broken, why fix it? (of course, when I say broken, I don't mean layouts breaking on text upscaling [which sadly is too often the case, even when fonts are only bumped up a notch or two]).