is probably because Canva is a tool for the larger crowd of designers. (I mean, I am not gonna start digging into what type of designer, that's a diff story)
and designers LOVE goofin' around with fonts, right?
The reason is control. If you want your stuff to align neatly and look good in the details you need to define a font. And there is no single system font you can truly rely on, so you just bring your own.
I'd be very happy if OS creators could agree on one set of universally supported system fonts, preferably open source, that work on all systems — until then your two options are:
- not caring about good design, giving up control and using whatever (sometimes this is a feasible option)
- caring about design and using your own font
I still think most of the time sticking to system is good enough. But I can see the custom font point of view if you strive for something more.
It’s a question of both accessibility and UX productivity. Switching to a different application shouldn’t be a jarring context switch. The user should be in control of their desktop environment, not the branding department at company X who insists that everything they release should be using font Y this year and then font Z the next. These changes bring no user benefits.
It’s different for software and content that actually tells a story. Games and web sites have a lot more freedom for custom design, and typeface choices are an elemental part of that.
I just wish more designers understood the distinction between telling a story and enabling people to be productive.
Nobody ever commented about this because it just looks good.
When you are building a web experience I can understand the need for other fonts (although I block downloading external fonts). But I totally agree with you when it comes to (web) apps.
Question because I'm a frontend noob. How do you achieve "100% size"? I've just been using font-size: 16px on the body element (which seems wrong), but I don't know how to word a search query for this.
font-size: 1em;
I have my mono-spaced typefaces, my variable-width typefaces, my serif, and my sans serif.
If you're Vignelli, you can tell the MTA which font to pick. If you're not him (or someone of equally high standing), you will most likely have to work with a style guide someone else thought out, and use whatever font(s) the style guide says you should use...
Plus, that was back in the seventies. Nowadays, every self-respecting company wants to have their own font (even if it's indistinguishable from Hel(l)vetica/Arial/whatever for >99% of people) - https://www.hvdfonts.com/custom-cases