typography

The Web, ever more sophisticated, is feeble as a publication medium when it's compared to what can be done with layout software such as Adobe Systems' InDesign. But that's beginning to change.

The change is significant: digital publishing is moving to the Web, but the array of new devices such as iPads and Kindles pose a challenge. Should those overseeing the designs create native applications for those devices or Web pages that will work on just about any device? For the latter to be a competitive option, the Web has to match up better.

A foundation for change was built with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), a standard for Web page formatting that's now growing in significance and power. One big element here is support for the @font-face technology and the related Web Open Font Format, which together are letting Web developers specify downloadable fonts and use online font repositories such as TypeKit for a more polished, customized look.

A new phase is under way now, though. Firefox browser developer Mozilla has begun work on CSS features to permit higher-end font controls, Mozilla developer John Daggett said yesterday in a blog post.

Among the controls are the following:

• Ligatures, which can replace combinations of letters with fancier or more readable replacements, a classic example being a specific glyph for "fi" to keep the top of the f from bumping into the dot of the i. … Read more

For those who make typefaces, there haven't been many changes since the invention of the printing press: hot lead, electronic typesetting, desktop publishing.

But now, more than 15 years after its invention, the World Wide Web is finally becoming the next frontier.

The steadily gaining influence of the medium and a new technology for distributing fonts to browsers has led one of the biggest names in typography to embrace the Web in earnest. On Tuesday, Monotype Imaging will open a catalog of nearly 8,000 of its fonts, with more to come, for use on Web pages.

Monotype Imaging's Web font service drew 15,000 users in beta testing with a smaller set of 2,200 fonts, but now it's launching for mainstream use.

When it comes to typography on the Web, "that world has been stunted," Monotype Imaging Chief Executive Doug Shaw said in an interview. "We look at it as a very important evolution in adapting typefaces to this new world."

Well, not new exactly, but new to the font industry. To date, most Web designers have relied on a strained combination of:

• A few "Web-safe" fonts such as Verdana and Arial that can be expected to be installed on most computers. • Text rendered in graphics formats such as JPEG. • Adobe Systems' Flash Player plug-in that offers polish but that's somewhat isolated from the rest of a Web page.

The arrival of Web fonts is an important milestone in the development of electronic media. The future of reading is text on screens--whether a book on a Kindle, a magazine on an iPad, or a news app on a mobile phone. Bringing that era to browsers is essential to making the Web as polished as other electronic media and as the print publications it's often supplanting.

Making the case for Web fonts Monotype Imaging is betting that businesses will see Web fonts as worth the new expense to their Web budgets. There are several potential reasons. … Read more

Your favorite font could soon be coming to the Web.

That's because of a new technology called Web Open Font Format, or WOFF, that has attracted support from all the right players: browser makers, standards groups, typography designers, and online services to ease licensing. The technology, just now ready enough to use, is making something of a debut this week at the TypeCon conference in Los Angeles.

WOFF grew out of cooperation among Erik van Blokland from type foundry LettError, Tal Leming from type foundry Type Supply, and Jonathan Kew of Mozilla. It's steadily accumulated allies, and some final pieces have now fallen into place:

• Browser support. Apple has added support in prototype builds of WebKit, the browser engine used by Safari. The four other major browsers already had signed up for WOFF.

• Adobe support. The design powerhouse said Monday it will offer several Adobe fonts for Web use through a font subscription service called TypeKit.

• Standardization. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) published the first draft of WOFF on July 27, clearing the way for its use in browsers and elsewhere.

Individually, these moves would be minor. But together, they promise to help open the Web to typography, catching the new medium up with books, newspapers, magazines, TV, and the rest of the world where words can embody more than just raw textual information. … Read more

In an attempt to move beyond drab typography on the Web, Google on Wednesday released 18 freely usable fonts and an open-source tool designed to smooth over browser issues in displaying downloaded fonts.

A number of Web designers--if not all readers--are excited that newer browsers support downloadable fonts so sites can use more than the handful that it's safe to assume are installed already on people's computers. For every eyeball-searing grunge font and blood-pressure-raising instance of Comic Sans, there's a tasteful use of an artful logo or distinctive text.

But font licensing rules mean a Web designer … Read more

Mozilla helped to bring it to fruition. Microsoft and Opera joined to sponsor its standardization. And now Google has decided to add support for WOFF, the Web Open Font Format, to its Chrome Browser.

"It appears that we have decided to implement WOFF in Chromium," said Chromium issue tracker Friday. He said he'd be writing the support in a way that converts WOFF to TrueType fonts for internal handling by the browser.

WOFF lets browsers download typefaces associated with Web pages, letting Web designers customize their sites' appearances. Currently, most Web sites use a small set of … Read more

With a surprise boost from Microsoft, the promise of rich typography on the Web just got a big step closer to reality.

The software company's involvement emerged Monday with sponsorship of a newer effort at the World Wide Web Consortium to standardize Web-based fonts with technology called the Web Open Font Format (WOFF). It's a fresh indicator of Microsoft's serious engagement with new Web standards--and it's a big boost for designers' attempts to stretch the Web beyond just the few typefaces that today can be expected to be already installed on people's computers.

It's … Read more

With its short wheelbase and light weight, the Toyota iQ is sure to be a tossable little compact on the road, but how would it fair as a writing instrument?

Using a motion capture camera mounted with a bird's-eye view of the canvas, stunt driver Stef Vancampenhoudt proceeded to precisely write the all of letters of the alphabet using the iQ. Designers Pierre and Damien of Pleaseletmedesign then took the motion capture data and created a Toyota iQ font (which can be downloaded from here).

Check the video below to see exactly how they did it.

(via i love typography … Read more

Depending on how much design work you've done, and what kind of software you're using, you probably have some idea of which fonts you have installed and what they look like. If you don't, there's a wonderfully simple Web app called Flipping Typical that gives you a WYSIWYG heads up of all of them at once.

You can type in whatever text you want to see and it will show you how it looks in each font, and the site updates in real time to reflect the changes. You can also use keyboard shortcuts to toggle … Read more

Kern is a very simple, typography-inspired arcade game in which you try to precisely position missing letters into falling words without creating an "unnecessary ligature," i.e., a spot where the letters overlap. The visual design and sound effects of this game are impressively slick and elegant throughout--as befits a graphic design-themed game--but aside from the variety of typography-related words and point sizes, the gameplay is fairly repetitive and one-dimensional, especially for a paid app. Overall, Kern will be best-loved by design nerds (although it should be noted that even the gameplay only has a superficial relationship to … Read more