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The SitePoint Design View #60                  Copyright (c) 2009
16th June, 2008                                    PLEASE FORWARD
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The Official Design Newsletter of SitePoint
by Alex Walker (design@sitepoint.com)

Read the HTML version of this newsletter, with graphics, at: 
http://www.sitepoint.com/newsletter/viewissue.php?id=5&issue=60

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INTRODUCTION  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Welcome to Design View #60. 

Cast your mind back just two issues and you might remember me
writing about the use of non-standard fonts and mentioning the
unicorn-like @fontface declaration -- a wondrous but mostly
mythical creature.

Well, two months can be a long, long time in web years. We
suddenly seem to have an exciting and, more importantly, viable
solution to using non-standard web fonts -- one that will be
usable almost immediately. Oh, happy day!

Typekit [1] is Jeff Veen [2]'s new baby and its goal is nothing
short of wanting to fundamentally change the way the Web looks.
Ambitious stuff, indeed.

We'll look at how it works and some of the pros and cons below.

Enjoy.

Alex Walker
Editor
SitePoint Design View

[1] <http://blog.typekit.com/2009/05/27/introducing-typekit/>
[2] <http://www.veen.com/jeff/index.html>



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IN THIS ISSUE - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

 - Introduction
 - Typekit: Promising or Promised Land?
 - Type: Artwork or Tool?
 - Latest Tutorials
 - Hot Discussions
 - New Blogs


TYPEKIT: PROMISING OR PROMISED LAND?  

"A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away they had perfect font
support and they used&#160;@font-face. 

In that glorious world, birds twittered gaily, the sun shone
warmly, and designers attached fonts to their page with a single
line of code and without fear of licensing repercussions. 

Unfortunately, we don't live&#160;there." 

DESIGN VIEW #58 - APRIL 2009 [1]

Little did we know when I wrote that in April that we might be
closer to that glorious world than we ever suspected.

As a quick refresher, you might remember that the technology was
never really the issue when it came to web-linking fonts.
Attaching fonts to your CSS was as simple as using
the&#160;@font-face like this: 

@font-face { font-family: Echelon; src: url('echelon.otf'); }

Then just calling on it using
the&#160;font-family&#160;declaration:

h3 { font-family: Echelon, sans-serif; }

No sir, the real showstopper was always the licensing issues.

Whenever you link to a font file in your CSS, it's impossible to
avoid making it available for anyone else to download, install,
and use.

Unsurprisingly, companies who make and sell type for a living
are about as unhappy about this as companies who make and sell
movies, music, or photostock are when they see you distributing
their products -- without somehow lining their pockets.

Typekit [2] is the first serious attempt to manage these
licensing issues and arguably its biggest accomplishment is
enticing some of the important type foundries to play along.

Till now, the foundries seem to have generally thrown their
hands up and given in when it comes to the Web. Typekit provides
a way for them to market their fonts without losing control of
them.

Here's How It Works

1) Typekit negotiates paid licensing agreements with a range of
commercial type houses to host their fonts on the Typekit
servers.

2) Developers and web site owners pay a license fee to Typekit
for use of a specific font on a given domain name. They then
link the font directly from the Typekit servers.



3) When users request a page using the linked font, Typekit only
serves the font if it's called from a licensed domain.

4) As Internet Explorer only supports the linking of Embedded
OpenType (EOT) [3] font format, Typekit also provides an EOT
font file to any Microsoft browser.

Obviously any time you link a file from a third-party site --
whether that's a JPEG, ZIP, MP3, or TTF -- you run the risk of
the file being blocked when access to that server is
unavailable.

However, no disaster there, providing you've chosen an
appropriate fallback font. In effect, you'll be no worse off
than you are at the moment.

So, if this works, should you just host the fonts on the same
web server as the site?

Here, we return to those tricky licensing issues. Even fonts
that are considered free rarely have an explicitly defined
agreement on CSS web linking. Some allow distribution on font
sites, but is that the same as web linking? Some require
attribution of the author, which is difficult with a web linked
font. Others allow for "personal use only."

Typekit's goal is to remove that legal ambiguity. Simply pay
your fee and forget about it.

Exactly how that fee structure might work is unclear at the
moment, but we'll speculate on that in the second part.

Read Kev's blog entry on the announcement:

     Web Design Blog: Pixel Perfect
by Kevin Yank

Web Fonts Get Real with Typekit [4] (15&#160;comments)  [1] <\>
[2] <http://blog.typekit.com/>
[3] <http://www.w3.org/Submission/EOT/>
[4] <http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/06/01/web-fonts-get-real-with-typekit/>



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TYPE: ARTWORK OR TOOL?  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

At the moment the biggest gray area with Typekit is the pricing
model. The problem with type is it has always been difficult to
define exactly what it is you're buying. 

Type as a Tool 

The first typefaces were cast metal so purchasing type meant you
were buying a big box of metal blocks.

The expense of purchasing, storing, and managing letter press
type dictated that there was no sense in owning more than a few
sets to use on all print work. Choice of typeface was not a real
design option for the designer.

In that sense, you could argue type was a printer's tool of the
trade, much like a carpenter's hammer. The printer made a
one-off purchase and the type foundry had no expectations about
any further payments each time their typeface was used.

As technologies like linotype [1], phototypesetting [2], and
(later) desktop publishing systems developed, it gradually
became easier to own and manage dozens, even hundreds of fonts.

As our desktop software arrives pre-tooled with library of
ready-to-use fonts, it's difficult for us to see them as any
different from the pen tool or the marquee -- just another
design tool.

Type as Artwork

By now, most of us are familiar with the stock photography
pricing model.

When we purchase an image there's no expectation to have open
slather in using it forever; it simply gives us the right to use
that image within an item of work -- print, online, or otherwise.

Typographers certainly put as much, if not more, skill and
effort into their creations as any illustrator or photographer,
so there's a rock solid argument that that they should be
recompensed via the same payment model.

Nonetheless, old habits die hard, and it will probably some take
time for some of us to change the way we view type and it's
value.

Type as a Service 

As I understand it, Typekit has already indicated it intends to
have a sliding payment scale; for example, Google would pay a
lot more to use Gill Sans on their search results than your
sister would to use Gill Sans on her hilarious cats blog.

What if you could buy yearly subscriptions to some of the fonts
that you particularly liked using?

That base subscription fee might allow you to provide the font
to up to 100,000 unique users per month -- regardless of how
many domains or pages you used that font across. Then, if you
ticked over your base limit, you would go to the next tier in
the payment system.

If you were to stop paying your subscription then sure, the font
potentially disappears across a range of sites.

But we're already well-acquainted with the idea that domain
registrations and hosting deals DO expire if we fail to pay
them, and I would think both those situations are far more
catastophic than losing your preferred typeface.

So, what would you be prepared to pay for?

 - one-off fee per web site

 - small yearly fee per web site

 - yearly subscription to a font, used wherever you like

 - nothing

Of course, at the moment this is all just speculation but we
might know a little bit more soon.

For those of you reading this in New York before Wednesday
night, Jeff Veen and Bryan Mason [3] are doing a live demo of
Typekit:

6:30pm, Wednesday 17th June&#160;
The Magician [4] 
118 Rivington Street 
(near Essex Street) 
New York, NY, 10002


Make your way down there and give us a field report. There'll be
plenty of us interested in your views.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linotype_machine>
[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phototypesetting>
[3] <http://www.flickr.com/photos/laughingsquid/2744068499/>
[4] <http://bit.ly/magician>



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That's all for this issue -- thanks for reading! I'll see you in
a few weeks.

Alex Walker 
design@sitepoint.com [1]
Editor, SitePoint Design View

[1] <mailto:design@sitepoint.com>



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NEW BLOGS - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

News & Trends Blog: INDUSTRY NEWS FOR WEB PROFESSIONALS

FullCodePress: An Interview with Wendy White of Team Australia 
(1 comment)
http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/06/11/fullcodepress-wendy-white/


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Why Blocking Ad Blockers Will Fail  (14 comments)
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Firefinder Adds Search to Firebug  (3 comments)
http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/06/01/firefinder-adds-search-to-firebug/


Web Pro Business Blog: STRATEGIES FOR SUCCESS

21 iPhone Apps For Business  (12 comments)
http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/06/10/21-iphone-apps-for-business/


Usability Blog: USABILITY 2.0

Play Your Cards Right: Run Your First Card Sort   (1 comment)
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Web Design Blog: PIXEL PERFECT

Squarespace: Could It Make Web Designers Redundant?  (14
comments)
http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/06/09/squarespace-could-it-make-web-designers-developers-redundant/

FineTuna: A Handy Collaboration Tool For Designers  (11 comments)
http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/06/08/finetuna-a-handy-collaboration-tool-for-designers/


Podcast Blog: THE SITEPOINT PODCAST

SitePoint Podcast #16: Online Marketing Inside Out  (12 comments)
http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/05/31/podcast16-online-marketing-inside-out/




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