Okay so this is pretty cool! It is not really a plugin – yet!
Websites have long been confined to a very limited selection of fonts if you want your site to look the same to all browsers and all platforms.
I think of it as a primes source of kindling for the heated battles between programmers and designers.
The Designer says here is my comp – I want the site to look just like this.
The programmer squints, grimaces, grunts and grumbles “well… ok… but… the problem is...”
This was why I learned html years ago… I was so frustrated with the developers grunts and grumbles.
Then I found myself arguing with ME!
There have been very clunky methods in the past for licensing fonts to display on website… or you could put it in your stylesheet with the knowledge that only those with that font installed would ever see it the way it was intended. OR you could create an image of everything you want in your fancy font (that makes the programmer complain about display lag).
Lat week, Monotype Imaging, a Massachusetts company that owns one of the largest collections of typefaces in the world made 2,000 of its fonts available to web designers.
AWESOME! uh… but how does it work?
Now, if a designer wants you to see Caslon, she can purchase it from the font company that owns it or through services such as Typekit, which has a library of fonts available by subscription. That font will be delivered to the designer’s website and to anyone viewing it, even if the font is not installed on the computer.
Read LA Times:
The changing typography of the Web
So what next? I signed up for Web Fonts Beta Program at fonts.com.
They have fonts – lots of fonts and you can subscribe in a sense to add fonts to you WordPress site (or any other site for that matter) via control panel that lets you define the CSS and then plug a little javascript in on your site to access the library.
Fontscom_Web_Fonts_Beta_Readme
That is what makes the blue title at the top in the handwriting font and the headings on the right and this below:
Web Fonts Beta Program
So what do I think?
Well it displays with hesitation – but they are working on that! I guess my greatest concern is that websites are going to get as goofy as the days of blinking fonts… geez it took forever to talk customers out of blinking fonts!
My advice – KEEP IT READABLE!
If you add a font for titles you could get pretty wild and still be okay – but I would get pretty annoyed if sites started to have all text in a graffiti font.
Still…
HOW COOL!
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Tags: beta program, fancy font, font company, la times, stylesheet, typefaces, typography, web designers