Web Directions

Fonts on the Web

• By:John
• Tweet: @johnallsopp
• April 22, 2009
• Leave a response

Regular readers will know the issue of embeddable/​linkable fonts for the web is more than a passing interest here at Web Directions.

Today, font designer Tal Leming talks about the issues from the perspective of folks who design typefaces, while Jeffrey Zeldman interviews Type designer David Berlow from a similar perspective.

There’s little doubt the day of linkable and embeddable fonts on the web is arriving at long last, and it’s something that at Web Directions we feel will change web design significantly.

2 responses to “Fonts on the Web”:

1. • By:Paul Annesley
   • April 22nd, 2009
   

   Sensational rant by Mark Pilgrim (the master of sensational rants) inspired by the aforementioned typography-​​is-​​sacrosanct interview: http://​diveintomark​.org/​a​r​c​h​i​v​e​s​/​2​0​0​9​/​0​4​/​2​1​/​f​u​c​k​-​t​h​e​-​f​o​u​n​d​r​ies

2. • By:Richard Fink
   • April 23rd, 2009
   

   John,
   I’m sick and tired of the stupidity surrounding this issue. You and I may or may not agree on some things but at least you know what the problems really are.
   My comment on AlistApart to the Berlow interview is this:

   “The important thing about font-​​embedding with @font-face, is that the font can, finally, “travel” with the document. What’s holding that up is strictly, strictly, an Intellectual Property problem and nothing else. Frankly, I can’t believe Berlow is as clueless as he seems. There is already a permissions table in TTF and OTF. Why do we need another one? The suggestion that first, the OTF format needs to be amended before we can even begin to tackle the problem of embedding fonts is, frankly, nuts. And moot – direct linking to TTF/​OTF files using @font-face is supported in Safari, FireFox 3.5, and Chrome 2. In IE, @font-face – requiring conversion of the OTF to a compressed EOT file – has been supported for over ten years. Berlow is talking about shadows, in-​​lines, outlines, fill variety, twisting, when we can’t even display a simple paragraph in a font optimized for screen-​​readability and make something as simple as THAT happen consistently across browsers and platforms. Everybody’s entitled to their opinion, but Berlow’s comments, taken in light of the practical impediments to the standards-​​compliant use of fonts on web pages today are so far removed from the real issues as to be misinformative. If Berlow is typical of type-​​designers as a whole in regards to savvy about browser technology, technical and legal hurdles, and the web in general, boy are we in trouble.”

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