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For Your Typographic
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| This image uses universal Web-safe fonts, but presents a much weaker, less effective design than the one below.
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| This image uses six decorative, non Web-safe fonts to make a powerful visual and typographic statement. This more expressive treatment will be possible with the use of embedded fonts, rendering the text searchable, as well as easily editable. Set in Fette Fraktur, Impact, Eccentric, Smack, Greyton Script, and Kristen Normal. |
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Last month, in Part 1 of Fonts on the Web, we talked about two practical ways to work within current typography limitations on the Web: first, using Web-safe fonts and, second, treating type as a graphic. Happily, in today’s rapidly-evolving world of technology, there are advances on the Web horizon that will expand your typographic freedom and increase your font choices dramatically.
Let’s talk about font embedding, a phrase often heard, but seldom fully understood. “Font embedding” is a catch-all phrase for several different alternatives to limiting yourself to Web-safe fonts. But the term is somewhat a misnomer, as one exciting solution does not actually involve embedding a font to a Web page, but rather involves accessing the font from a remote server. This enables the end user to view text set in the embedded font even if the font isn’t installed on the user’s computer. Whether you think of it as font embedding or as remote font access, its implementation will potentially eliminate the need for, as well as the limitations of, Web-safe fonts. It will open up the doors to unlimited typographic freedom. It will also reduce the dependence on static, slow-loading, and unsearchable graphic image files, such as GIFs and JPGs.
This all sounds great, but is including a variety of fonts in a Web page currently possible? Here’s the story: Standard HTML code does not allow for the embedding of fonts. But Cascading Style Sheets, level 2 (CSS2) does, via its <@font-face code>, which allows Web designers to link to fonts located on a remote server. While most current browsers support this level of CSS2, the great obstacle to implementation is the licensing agreements (EULA) of most desktop fonts, which prohibit posting to Web servers. So to sum it up, current technology does support font embedding, but font foundries have had difficulties resolving the licensing issues necessary to make it all happen.
This is all about to change for the better, as type designers, font foundries and resellers work hard to offer solutions to the font embedding opportunity. The first step is to create or convert fonts deemed appropriate for the Web into a format intended for Web usage and embedding, with the appropriate licensing provision. (It’s important to bear in mind that not all fonts will perform well in a Web environment.) The next step is to make these fonts available in a way that is practical and affordable for the end user. This is being addressed in several ways. One is by direct purchase of these Web-ready fonts; another is the ability to “rent” the fonts you need, which will then reside on a remote server. This will allow access to a broad library of fonts at minimal cost.
Sound compelling? It is, because the ability to use a larger library of fonts will change the world of Web typography as we have known it. So stay tuned, as by the time you read this, the future might be here!