Well, I’m looking at it on 1280x1024, and I would say that on my res it is not too small an sich, however it is too small for the typeface. The serifs clutter.
So I would say if you want American Typewriter, increase the size. If you don’t wan’t to increase the size, pick a good sans serif that can be used small on screen.

So will this new website be made of images? Flash? If it’s going to be “coded” I would stick with a “web” font - they actually display on the screen better as well (especially at small sizes)

You have to remember that everyone has different resolution screens.

If you’re making the site as HTML text (as you should, IMHO) then I’d stick with 10px type at a minimum, and expect some folks (like me) to probably adjust the type size larger.

If it’s all flash, then definitely aim for something even bigger, as there’s no way for an end user to easily enlarge type set in Flash...and that will cause a chunk of your audience to just not bother reading the site.

If you are making it in Html increase the fontsize to at least 11px/pt for serif typefaces (georgia is recommended) and 10 px/pt for sans typefaces (verdana).
The antialiasing of the typefaces is a problem if you have not restricted the design to follow a pixel grid. If you are working in Adobe illustrator CS3 (you can specify when creating a new document) that the resolution is 72dpi and pixel preview. Go into the preferences and create a grid 10px by 10px with 10 subdivisions. Make it snap to grid (The clue here is to always think in pixels even with type (size and leading). If you do this it should solve the problem. Do this also if you are creating images of the text and save for web directly from illustrator (Make sure you create a background box which is exactly the documentsize and aligned to the artboard).

What platform and browser were they using when they thought the text was too small? If you’re not using images, and the text is spec’d in HTML, are you sure they were seeing American Typewriter, and not Courier?

Jason C

Jason has a point;-)

I’m not a big fan of websites that force font sizes on users. There is a certain class of user for whom your type IS too small, by a large range. I prefer to create sites that use percentage or em dimensions, so that a user who needs it can enlarge the type by using the font settings within the browser.