![]() The font is now among the first things that the browser starts loading. Let’s take a look at the effect it has on website and font loading. I added this line of code even before the one that loads the CSS for the website. So I went ahead and added the following to the in my HTML: So if I preload my custom font, will the website loading waterfall chart reflect that? And more importantly, will it have a positive effect on the website loading? Will it get rid of the jarring transition between fonts? No wonder we have that jarring transition from the fallback to the custom font. The fonts are pretty much the last things that are loaded. ![]() 3G simulated loading took 7.04 seconds to load. The font is among the last things that get loaded by the browser. So here’s how the website is loaded by default: This ensures they are available earlier and are less likely to block the page’s render, improving performance. The preload value of the element’s rel attribute lets you declare fetch requests in the HTML’s, specifying resources that your page will need very soon, which you want to start loading early in the page lifecycle, before browsers’ main rendering machinery kicks in. When do the fonts get loaded by default? Does preloading fonts change that? Based on MDN’s documentation, preloading content means: So the first thing I wanted to test was font preloading. I later learned that this can result in accessibility issues or, in some extreme cases, custom font not loading at all and all text on the website remaining invisible! □ So now I wanted to find out if preloading fonts or using font-display can help me with that. In the past, I often relied on hiding the text until the custom font was loaded so the user experienced the flash of invisible text (FOIT) during the website loading. ( Source)įor a type geek like me, that’s unacceptable. The browser shows the text set in Futura first (the first fallback font from the stack available) and only switches to Gilroy once it’s loaded. Still, the website loading resulted in a jarring transition. I optimistically set the first fallback font to be Futura because at least it’s a geometric sans serif font-kinda similar. Neither of those is a good option because they’re all very different from Gilroy. My first fallback font is Futura but because it’s not a common font on Mac OS or Windows, the browser will most probably default to Roboto, Helvetica or Arial. This means that, by default, the browser will first show all my headings set in the first font that is available on the user’s computer. My font stack for using it in CSS is the following: font-family : "Gilroy", Futura, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol" ![]() Gilroy is a unique-looking geometric sans serif font and it’s hard to find a similar fallback font. Could preloading the custom font help with that? Default web font loading ![]() Now I wanted to make sure that the visitors of the website don’t experience the jarring transition between the fallback and custom font while it’s loading. I went through a long process of choosing the right font for it which I documented in my How to choose a font for a project article. I just launched a website for UX Buddy-a new side project I recently started working on. Flash of invisible text (FOIT) is supposed to improve that but because it hides the website’s text until the font is loaded, it introduces accessibility issues. Yeah, that jarring transition was unavoidable. ![]() In the past, when loading custom fonts we couldn’t really avoid the flash of unstyled text (FOUT)-you know that split second when the website is loading and it uses a substitute font until it loads your custom one? ![]()
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