Font replacement on websites
John Smith
For those that missed our meeting Friday, you missed a fun time! One of
the cool things we talked about was font replacement online. Sometimes
you get a client that just demands a special font, and as we know there
are a limited number of 'native' fonts available.
In this case many of us would have gone to SIFR -- the flash replacement
of fonts. Lately, though, I've been using something much better. It
doesn't have the limitations that flash does, as it uses native
javascript.
I could talk about it for hours, but let me just say it's one of the
coolest tools in my design arsenal and I'd wholly recommend it for everyone!
5iveLeaf Design Studio
embedding. You could also check out TypeKit. Sorry I missed the
conversation.
Tim
John Smith
still problems getting fonts that would embed nicely, not everyone
supported them, and of course, a limited number of fonts. What's your
experiences with that?
5iveLeaf Design Studio
choices are somewhat limited to fonts that have open licenses for use
on the web, but that is a concern no matter what font embedding
technology you use. If you're using a font that isn't licensed for
that kind of use, I believe even using Cufon is a violation of the
terms of use for that font. There are TONS of fonts available for
@font-face embedding on Font Squirrel. It's pretty likely that you'd
be able to at least find something similar to the font the client
wanted to use. I have used Cufon too, but had issues in IE6 with it.
Not to mention, for those few people browsing with JS turned off, they
do not see the client's pretty font.
Implementation of @font-face is dead simple. The kits give you the
css, the font files (IE compatible font files included) and all of the
font specification is handled right in the CSS file without additional
code in the head of your pages. It's cool stuff, and pretty well
supported.