One day I wrote about how Microsoft made the Web ugly.
Then I suggested a solution: webfonts. Yet there is a caveeat!
Only some webfonts work for body text – not just headlines!
Many webfonts fail at basic readability or have display issues.
This time I want to show you an actual font with examples – the Proxima Nova webfont.
Why this specific font? It’s probably the best font for body text readability!
Let me explain and find the download links below!
Why not choose a free Webfont from Google Fonts?
In the past I promised to find the best font for body text readability.
I checked out and tested many dozens of them on my blogs!
Proxima Nova is among the most popular premium webfonts for that purpose.
I’ve checked most of the free sans-serif fonts available.
Why just sans-serif? Serif fonts do not work for small type on the Web in my opinion.
I started with free webfonts of course.
- Most of the free fonts were not good enough though.
- Yet also most webfonts are hosted by Google so that the Internet giant can track your visitors.
- Last but not least professional graphic designers denounce free fonts:
“There is no such thing as a good free font”.
Then I went on checking paid fonts and discovered a typography trend while at it!
I was surprised that one of the most popular webfonts seems to be Proxima Nova.
I thought it was still something for geeks.
By 2025 I am using Inter here, a fairly new free webfont of very high quality.
Who uses the Proxima Nova webfont for body text? Examples
Flickr.com – the oldest social media site for photographers uses Proxima Nova on their homepage for headlines and body text.
See also screenshot on top of the post!
There are plenty of other examples of Proxima Nova usage in the wild. Three of my favorites that use it for body text are:
- A site featuring local US flags – see screenshots here
- The We Love NYC campaign – read more about it here
- A trendy online store from Australia – see screenshots here
Flickr and the site about the flags and are my favorite examples as they use just Proxima Nova (Flickr.com) or mainly the font (usflags.design).
Are there still readability issues? It depends.
Is Proxima Nova perfect for both headlines and body text?
It depends, even though it’s among the best solutions!
You can use a great webfont in a wrong way though. What can possibly go wrong?
- No font-smoothing when Windows ClearType switched off.
- Proxima Nova in 15px and 13px looks warped
- At the end of the day only 16px+ is readable for body text
I covered the issues that arise from the Windows implementation of font smoothing.
When I switch it off, some fonts will be smooth because they are by themselves, other won’t.
Some fonts are made specifically for the Web and deserve the term webfont, others are only ported.
Consider this screen shot of not anti-aliased body text in Proxima Nova of 16px size:
Not all the sites using Proxima Nova face the same problems though.
It seems the implementation and the accompanying CSS also matters.
I’d advise you not to use Proxima Nova in sizes like 15px or 16px.
Generally anything below 14px doesn’t work properly with this font.
The perfect size seems to be above 16px but as screen resolutions become bigger and thus body text looks smaller consider 18px or more by now.
As Proxima Nova is a whole font family so it also depends on which weight you actually choose for each task.
Download the Proxima Nova webfont!
You can download Proxima Nova from almost all font foundries.
Some also allow you to host the webfont on their site.
Ideally you download and put webfonts on your server though. It’s faster then! Here are some options:
- Mark Simonson (the designer himself)
- Adobe Fonts
- Fontspring
Or search the Web to find your favorite place to get it.
Ping me me @onreact on social media once you create a project using Proxima Nova.
I might add it here to my examples. I had to remove many already over the years.
Free Proxima Nova alternatives?
Still not convinced to buy Proxima Nova? Or it’s too expensive?
Look at these free webfonts for body text readability. They don’t look blurry or fuzzy.
In the meantime I have found a much better readable (but still not perfect) free webfont for me. I describe it here.
Yet as mentioned above I use the Inter webfont on seo2.blog by now.
The link above leads to the font designer himself in case you don’t want to host on Google.
Inter looks somewhat similar to Proxima Nova but more like Helevetica. The others are quite different.
So in case you look for a clean sans-serif for free you should be OK by 2025.
Proxima Nova has a unique look though – especially the a – no other fonts come close to.