Sans-serif Letter Variety Using sans-serif typefaces for body copy can be a little tricky because without serifs it can be more difficult for the eye to quickly distinguish between two similar letter forms. In his 2009 article, On Web Typography for A List Apart, Jason Santa Maria quotes Zuzana Licko who stated, “We read best what we read most.” Perhaps in 50 years from now, Helvetica will be considered the most legible typeface on earth because of the insane Helvetica fetishism we’ve witnessed over the last few years. For now, our (western) eyes and brains are trained to skim quickly and effortlessly over serif typefaces and recognize patterns and shapes within the letters. It is useful to find sans-serifs that pass the Il1 rule. Type a capital I, a lowercase l and a number 1 next to each other. If you can’t tell the difference between these characters, you may run into some trouble when setting the text. Also check to see if the typeface has a two-story a and g. Sansserif typefaces with two-story a’s and g’s usually read a bit quicker than those with single-story a’s and g’s.
“We read best what we read most.” 16