Extending the font-family

A List Apart posted an article this week describing how fonts could and should be more exciting on the web. As a bonus, it links to two free font creators Ray Larabie and Dieter Steffmann. Great work, I’ve already found myself playing around with a new font thanks to this. I was surprised to learn that part of the CSS2 specification allows stylesheets to refer to web fonts (as it’s something the browser makers seem to have failed to pick up on). However I’m glad that the point has been made and the discussion restarted.

So currently, one option is to use sIFR (for short pieces of text, e.g. headings). Not used it before? Download the sIFR release and get a good tutorial.

Combine all of these fantastic (free) resources with a bit of responsible web design and more interesting design will hopefully result.

If you’re still not convinced fonts are important, read “Web Design is 95% Typography” by Oliver Reichenstein (OK he doesn’t explicitly make the case for more fonts, but he does assert the importance of typography).

Posted on Thursday 30 August 2007.

Posted in creativity, css, design, typography | Add a comment »