For years, the advice was simple: use a sans serif on screens. Low resolution displays turned fine serifs into blurry smudges, and nobody wanted to read long text that way.
Sharper screens, different rules
Most people now read on displays dense enough to render serifs cleanly. The details that used to blur now hold up, and the rhythm they add to long text is back.
Publishers noticed first. Several have moved their article text to serifs in the past year, keeping a sans serif for interface elements around it.
Where serifs work best
Serifs shine in long reading: articles, documentation, reports. They are less useful in dense interfaces, where small labels and numbers benefit from the simpler shapes of a sans serif.
Pairing them
- Pick a serif with a generous x-height for body text.
- Keep the sans serif for navigation, buttons and labels.
- Match the two by x-height, not by name.
Serifs never stopped being good at long text. The screens just had to catch up.
