With the exception of images, only amateurs use anything but the standard fonts, because while it may seem "creative" to use some other fonts, it's far from predictable or reliable. Of those standard fonts, Times New Roman fit the bill for headers more than Georgia, Arial makes the best generic header font, and Verdana is the most readable body font. That's why you see professionals use them so much.
I think you're mistaking popularity for quality. There's nothing wrong with any of those fonts, per se--they are tried and true classics--but by being overused they become a liability, and you also lose plenty of design options.
It's hilarious (in a sad way) how so many people throw up their arms and praise the supposed fact that designers have finally gotten their paws on the Internet and "civilized" it from the days when engineers and geeks did most of the layout work. Yet honestly these people have no friggin' clue what they are talking about. I work in the new media division of a media company, and it's amazing how deluded these folks are about what constitutes
good design. As somebody who is not only a major
user of electronic media, but also an (amateur) designer in his own right, I have a few words for these folks.
None of that is a jab at you. All it comes down to is whose definition of "professional" one uses.
Nowadays there are beautiful new alternatives, like Sylfaen and Trebuchet, that are the next best thing to universal (at least in the U.S.), as well as mre exotic fonts that could be used in a limited sense, like MingLiU for headlines or Orlando for large text, that would still work for the majority of users. And, of course, there are always the old-school alternatives to Times, Ariel, and the usual crowd, like Garamond and Helvetica, which are now pretty darn standard issue.
It's bad enough the same font renders differently on different platforms (or even on the same platform, say if you enable Cleartype on Windows), but completely different fonts? That quickly becomes a mess of picking lots of backup alternatives, and the end result is a complete lack of consistency, which is bad enough in itself, but it makes a lot of other stuff unpredictable as well.
Also, layouts aren't about the logo. They're about promoting content.
Disagree. Every successful brand has some kind of visual cue, like an icon or banner, to represent it. The closest we have is the "Chrono Compendium" title art; and you've made it less than a hundred pixels tall and two hundred wide. It should be more prominent.
Well, only in my opinion.
Edit: Geez...edited for bad spelling, bad tags, bad formatting, etc.
