Web Typography

Typography plays an important role in Iowa State’s visual identity. Because our graphic communications reach many overlapping audiences, it is important that the university’s image is reflected clearly and consistently in all situations.

For print, two type families form the foundation of our graphic identity: ITC Berkeley Old Style and Univers. These two type families, highly versatile and highly legible, are compatible with each other as well as with our wordmark.

While Berkeley and Univers work well in print communications, due to technical limitations on the web, we suggest limiting their use to large size copy such as titles or headlines and in the form of an image graphic. Web-friendly type fonts that share some of the same characteristics of Berkeley and Univers have been carefully chosen for web use.

The digital font replacements are Arial (for Univers) and Merriweather (for Berkeley). These fonts can be viewed on most browsers. Merriweather can be utilized by designers and developers through Google Fonts. Arial is a system font. Additional information about using typography with the Iowa State web theme is available on page 21 of the Web Style and Story Guide.

The university no longer has a licensing agreement for Nimbus Sans as a university brand web type font.  It has been replaced with Arial, a type font that is easily accessible.  If you are making any updates to your web sites, you will need to check the flow of your text, since there is some variation between Nimbus Sans and Arial. The change was applied to the university’s web theme in an update. If your site is supported by an internal web team or a third-party vendor, make sure theme updates are applied on a regular basis and that their implementation works correctly.

Arial Family

Merriweather Family