Comments on: Custom Web Fonts: Pick Your Poison

By: Stilter

Stilter — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 16:49:07 +0000

I know this is a late entry into the fray, but here goes…
My brother is the chief of art/design/layout at an outdoor advertising agency. They use custom fonts on their products all the time. Basically, they buy a font from a font producer (Adobe, etc.) for a set price, then use it for any sign or advertisement, and any client present or future. No additional fees required.
If the font producers are cool with that, then why not selling to a web designer to use on any page they create?
It seems a double standard.
If the fonts where available on a server through an encrypted link, @font-face could work.

It could work like this:
A web designer pays a membership to the font server.
They would register the domain name that will use the font.
The server would generate an encrypted code that allows that domain to access the font file.
The encrypted code would be included in the CSS file with the link to the server for the font file.
When a client/browser views the web page, the font file would be downloaded to the client cache for use while viewing the web page/site.
The font server would pay the producer outright for the font or pay royalties, etc.

Designers would have to make decisions about what fonts to use based on the file size, just like images file sizes.

Just an idea…

By: Chaudhary

Chaudhary — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 07:49:46 +0000

Very cool information about subject. I get maximum knowledge from it. Thanks.

By: randywehrs

randywehrs — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 21:13:34 +0000

I think that the main problem is that even if the design community comes up with a way to standardize some better fonts, the problem is how far back the public, and computer manufacturers will lag behind.

We’re stuck with these fonts – just the way it’s going to be for a long time to come. Unless google steps in and starts hosting a bunch of free fonts for us all to link to.

By: ETbyrne

ETbyrne — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 00:17:10 +0000

Wouldn’t embedding fonts be just like embedding other media formats like audio and video? Anyone can rip music from a CD and embed it into a web page, but that doesn’t mean that it is legal.

If people are worried about people stealing fonts off web pages then they are blind to the fact that nothing is safe on the internet. Ever.

By: juhlster1021

juhlster1021 — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 19:00:31 +0000

@font-face isn’t a practical solution. My second cousin’s neice’s best friend may not have an ethical alarm bell ringing whild she posts any ol’ font file she feels like, but it obviously won’t work for professional desn.

EOT doesn’t seem much better until the fonts we love are licensed to allow this distribution method.

I think our best bet is to convince some top-notch font designers to create/release a set of fonts that are compact in size and unrestricted in usage. I like the comments above suggesting that we try to encourage development of a new set of fonts that are appealing and also have the appropriate permissions attached.

By: arts-multimedia

arts-multimedia — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 11:14:58 +0000

Hm, you wouldn’t believe how slow some of those so called “broadband connections” are in large parts of the world, so this could be a problem.
But we could leave the option open to the user to accept EOT or not, just as you can refuse to download images.

By: mercuryvapour88

mercuryvapour88 — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 10:51:16 +0000

Nevertheless, EOT has to be the short-term solution for limitless variety of font usage while still giving credit/money to the font Artiste. The customer will have to pay for it and not all customers understand the necessity of a unique look and feel by using an expensive font. I still think linking to an OpenSource font will the final solution but certainly not a quick one. If these forums are any motivation to get artists creating for OpenSource, then it will happen sooner rather than later. I'm fired up for it now. All I need is some free font designing software! free font editor already installed in windows

By: mercuryvapour88

mercuryvapour88 — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 10:31:32 +0000

Just take a look at the fonts you already have installed in your fonts folder to see how big they are. On average you’re adding 25-150KB, but I have a few as low as 3KB (DataGlyph SP) and as high as 15MB (Batang & Batang Che). With a lot of people now on such high bandwidth speeds, I think an extra 150KB (max.) is tolerable. Whatever the case, the user still has to download the font in order to view the page.
Getting back to choices between EOT and linking, I think EOT, although perhaps more expensive in terms of licencing (for the customer), would provide more variety, while linking will only work if it solves the problem of licencing. A simple solution (for linking) could be a paid memebership to a server that will provide an authorised gateway to the fonts of your choice with either a limited or unlimited selection depending on the price of your membership. What say you all to this solution?

By: arts-multimedia

arts-multimedia — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 09:30:45 +0000

In the short term it might be a good solution to have an additional set of standard fonts because then we have more options to simulate the appearance of other fonts.

But ultimately, we need to be able to use any existing font (that looks good on a monitor, I hasten to say), regardless what font designers think of it. As long as we make it difficult to steal fonts, there should be no objection. So, EOT might be the best option in the long run, but I have to be honest, I do not know how it exactly would work and how heavy pages might become due to the implementation of embedding.

By: mercuryvapour88

mercuryvapour88 — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 07:51:29 +0000

I also agree with Franglix and okparrothead, an open source font pack has to be the answer installed with every new OS or made freely availble to be installed in your fonts folder.
To counter WhSox21, what if this font pack, instead of the situation we have now with only about 10 fonts, was about 1,000 fonts? If we’ve had more than 10 years with only 10 fonts, how many could we have with 1,000?
Fonts should be freely accessible just like the jpg images and anything else that gets published.