Typekit
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- Scotch_Roman0
Did I say it was impossible to design a beautiful website using common web fonts? No. I just don't like being so constricted.
Imagine if you were designing a wedding invite that was going to be letterpressed, and polymer plates hadn't been invented yet. You'd be stuck using one of a handful of typefaces. Sure, you could create something beautiful with Baskerville and Franklin Gothic, but it's certainly nice to have more options.
I think it's silly and incredibly limiting for designers to restrict their careers to a mere 4–5 typefaces. I think everyone eventually finds a handful of favorites, but it would be absurd of me to say I could solve any design problem in the world with Helvetica, Avenir, Minion, or Bodoni.
- and pretty crappy ones at that. at least vignelli chose good typefaces with his restrictions.jaylarson
- Exactly. I like Georgia, and Verdana is OK for what it was designed to do...Scotch_Roman
- But I hate projects that relegate the designer to using Arial or Times.Scotch_Roman
- dMullins0
Haven't had any problems with Typekit on either, OSFA.
- mikotondria30
I think the engineering concept is fine, but the revnue model is all wrong. The end user, rather than the developer/content creator should be the ones paying. Bundle it into the cost of Windows or OSn, make it a one-time payment for the lefty -nixers..
That's how you currently pay for the fonts you get, nothing is free.- but going by that concept the end user _can_ pay.. if you as a designer choose to pass the cost onlukus_W
- BonSeff0
bump
- lumedia0
this seems like a temporary solution...
In the end font licenses will include web use and you will just have a 'fonts' folder on the server. The user will download a temp version of the fonts you used to render the web page.
I am not a web designer, but am I right?
- 5timuli0
Unfortunately (unless I'm misunderstanding how this works) TypeKit uses JavaScript, not CSS, which is yet another obstacle getting in the way of true @font-face implementation and another excuse forthe foundries not to develop/modify their EULA to allow font linking.
I'm not convinced it will last in the long term, but it's certainly a great option in the mean time.
- bort0
I dunno. If I can fashion something workable out of sIFR or Cufon without having to pay a subscription fee, I'll likely go that route. $25 a year per site (with the personal plan)? Meh.
- 5timuli0
The only way I can see foundries being happy is if they develop a method of hosting their fonts on dedicated on-site foundry servers, encrypted in such a way that the fonts can't be downloaded. That way they'll have total control.
- run with that idea, it's goodversion3
- +1Scotch_Roman
- < this is exactly what typekit is. They are acting as the intermediary for the foundrieslukus_W
- I meant let the foundries host the font files on their servers. Totally removing the need for externally distributed files.5timuli
- And hopefully, not using JavaScript to slow things down.5timuli
- bort0
Okay, I just set up a free account to try it out and I must say, it's ridiculously easy to use. Kudos on that front. Their free font library isn't great, but it isn't horrid either.
- detritus0
I'm doing a wee site for myself at the moment - a blog, essentially, for my own use - so I thought 'fuckit' and have included @font-face.
My God. It works.
Rights issues and such aside, it's brilliant and I'm going to consider using it for other, more public projects.
I've been thinking for a while now that a site should have two modes - 'bleeding edge' functionality, for those with the latest browsers, and a retard level version for all the gimps stuck on IE6.
The retard one would still work, still be functional and worthwhile - but just wouldn't bother with anything fancy - I mean, that's where stuff starts breaking down, so fuckit. Basic CSS and images for the plebs it is.
- ps. anyone got any tips on hobbling Opentype to make it pointless for dl'ing by freetards?detritus
- 'hobbling an opentype font' even.detritus
- what I mean is - I want to strip out all the non-basic alphanumeric characters, so it's only of use for titles, etc.detritus
- ...and, more importantly, to reduce the filesize :)detritus
- Kind of like Cufon does?ukit
- I mean more in fontlab or something - physically removing the glyphs that make a font valuable.detritus
- I couldn't quite get it to work last night. Mind you, I was a little drunk.detritus
- ukit0
@detritus - I think they call it "progressive enhancement."
I like your retard/ bleeding edge terminology better though;)
- graham0
Anyone need an invite?
- acescence0
@detritus, you can use fontforge to remove glyphs, it's free. you can also convert other types to ttf for @font-face
- forcetwelve0
looks good to me. i've been using cufon lately though and that's pretty rad.
- knars0
this thread's glasses have slipped. i suggest you push them back up.
- Blue_Balls0
sweet like candy!
- fyoucher10
yet again...one of those things I should have thought of that will end up making a ton of loot.
- OSFA0
bumpy!