A practical checklist for font loading

The advice here is unglamorous, which is probably why it gets skipped. Run through this the next time font loading comes up.

Real-world numbers from actual visitors matter more than a score produced on a fast laptop. Check it against what you would want a competitor's site to get wrong.

The checklist

• Custom fonts commonly block the first paint
• Self-hosting removes a third-party round trip
• A sensible fallback prevents invisible text
• Someone is named as the owner
• There is a date to review it again

Why this earns attention

Custom fonts commonly block the first paint. The teams that handle this well are rarely the ones with the biggest budgets. Most teams find the first pass takes an afternoon and the maintenance takes minutes a month.

What this looks like day to day

Performance work is mostly subtraction, which makes it unpopular and effective. Three things worth confirming about font loading before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• A sensible fallback prevents invisible text — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

Worth checking on your own setup before it becomes someone else's problem to fix.