As my brother continues the visual redesign of our family site (primarily a web forum and gallery), he's now facing down typographic issues. What typeface will best fit our family and how we use our site? What's the prevailing family aesthetic, and does it work toward or against legibility or clear typographic hierarchy?

It's been interesting to see the feedback thus far. Naturally we've discussed the virtues of faces designed for the screen like Verdana, Georgia and Lucida Grande. Conversation has run through the oft seen web practice of serifs for headlines, sans for copy. (Complete with explanations of why that works best for screen while the inverse is normally best for print. I love having a family full of type geeks.) We've even made our way to talking through font replacement methods like sIFR and whether it's worth using that to open up the option of family favorites like Garamond and Goudy Old Style.

All things being equal, sIFR's not really my cup of tea once I'm done admiring the code. (I'm generally one of those "keep the text texty" sorts.) I love quality type, but I get uneasy about replacing regular text, even if we're still preserving accessibility. That said, I'm about ready to put down money that someone in the family will volunteer to implement it for that extra bit of typographic punch. (Dad had no idea what trouble he was causing, keeping all those typography books where young boys could get at them.)

We'll see if I get roped in to help someone make out the scripting. If I do, something tells me I'll enjoy sIFR altogether too much in spite of myself.