Nice Web Type

Font math and CSS

When I created the Body Size Comparison part of Web Font Specimen, I knew there was more to learn about the impact font files’ sizing and spacing has on CSS. Now, with the help of my talented colleagues at Typekit, the mystery unfolds.

After some serious (and seriously maddening) research, Matt Colyer and I got a better idea about how fonts are sized and spaced in CSS — and how it relates to the math within font files. We turned this into one blog post so far, called Font metrics and vertical space in CSS, with some more detail on the way in a future post. This also set the stage for some Partner Tools at Typekit, to help us work together with our foundry partners on making type the best it can be for web typesetting.

It was awesome to work with Jason and Greg on turning sketches and plans into actual, valuable pieces of Typekit’s service, and also awesome to receive advice and direction from Jeff and Ryan.

New Web Font Specimen

At long last — a more concise, more useful Web Font Specimen.

And not only that, but three more interesting things of note: First, a realigned webfontspecimen.com that will help it grow a bit (new nav at the top, and less info on the front page); Second, a list of things folks are doing with WFS (on the About page — some awesome stuff there); And finally, most exciting:

Web Font Specimen is now built into Typekit! Launch a WFS of any Typekit typeface directly from font pages, without any of the usual setup work.

Thanks, once again, to Jason Santa Maria for guidance on this revision, and to my colleagues at Typekit – particularly Greg Veen – for making it part of the service. In refining WFS it was necessary to remove certain features, but I hope what we have now is a more simple, solid foundation upon which to build.

WFS is still licensed via Creative Commons, so use it however you like. Over time, I’ll likely be working on it both independently and as part of Typekit. If you have ideas about how it can be better or suit different purposes, please experiment and share!

Richard Fink for A List Apart

Richard Fink is knowledgeable fellow who asks tough questions and always stands up for the little guy. Yesterday, A List Apart published an article he wrote about the state of web fonts, and it is not only a genuine snapshot in time but a milestone for our future. Comprehensive and deep, approachable, digestible, and durable, this article also represents the very best kind of ALA publishing: That which makes room, on our screens and in our minds, for complexity to be unwound in an actionable way.

You may know Richard from having seen him in the Typophile forums or in the comments of web type related blog posts peppered across the web. He can be argumentative at times, and tenacious in seeking information; this ALA article is a great result of that energy. Richard has always been an honest, pleasant guy in my conversations with him, and has shown serious commitment to the web as a ubiquitous, accessible medium; this ALA article reflects these personal qualities as well.

Worth your time. Read the article.

Good Web Fonts

Laura Franz has chosen some typefaces that work well for web text, and has shared them at a new website called Good Web Fonts.

You’ve read Bringhurst. You keep The Elements of Typographic Style on your bedside table. You can’t wait to use more fonts online… but you want to do right by your clients and your readers.

Each selection is accompanied by brief thoughts about what makes it look good on screen, as well as a Web Font Specimen Laura modified just for Good Web Fonts. Don’t miss What makes a good web (text) font? and Some lovely fonts that almost made it.

Bulletproof smiley @font-face syntax

Paul Irish made a small but important change to his recommended cross-browser, cross-platform @font-face syntax. To avoid a few different problems, Paul explains (scroll to “And.. regarding @font-face syntax”), we should use a smiley face character instead of references to local copies of fonts. From Paul:

Yes, it’s a smiley face. The OpenType spec indicates any two-byte unicode characters won’t work in a font name on Mac at all, so that lessens the likelihood that someone actually released a font with such a name.

Syntax at How to use CSS @font-face has been updated. And folks using the Font Squirrel generator are already using this updated syntax — the folks at Font Squirrel adopted Paul’s smiley syntax a while ago.

One year later

Here we are, one year later. When I began learning in public late last April, I had no idea it would help me meet thousands of awesome people, write an article for the folks to whom I owe much of my web education – A List Apart – and land a job as Type Manager for Typekit. This coming year looks great, as well.

Build Conference

I’ll be speaking at this year’s Build conference in Belfast, Ireland, in the company of web legends and inspiring, talented legends-to-be. I’m honored to be in the same list of names as Dan Cederholm, Meagan Fisher, Liz Danzico, Frank Chimero, Keegan Jones, and Tim Van Damme. What an exciting group.

This is the second year of Build. Some of last year’s presentations are still on Vimeo; Check them out for a taste of the atmosphere, and follow @buildconf on Twitter for more info (and so you’ll know when tickets go on sale). Thanks to Andy McMillan for the invite, and for organizing what looks like it will be a fantastic event.

Making nice web type

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been working on a casual project I’m calling Making Nice Web Type. I’m basically designing a Tumblr theme from scratch. I wanted to do it anyway, and writing about my decisions seemed like a fun idea. Some folks have started following along. You should too!

Typekit work

Man, is there a lot going on at Typekit. First, all the new typefaces and foundry partners, the new account structure, experimental iPhone/iPad support, and the new gallery feature. And then, there’s all this stuff we’re working on and haven’t talked about yet. I didn’t realize how tough it would be to have insider knowledge and not be able to share it all. It’s killing me.

This is going to be one awesome year. Thanks, as always, for your interest and attention.

Timelines

Regarding my previous post on context and the state of typography, what if data like this timeline of web technology:

… were interactive like this, but with the ability to link directly to a particular moment in time? I’m not sure if SIMILE’s Timeline widget can do permalinks to specific points in time, but creating a basic timeline is as easy as microformatting web milestones.

Hat tip to Ray and Chris for pointing out these resources.

On the state of typography

Wonderful tutorials on web type techniques aren’t so wonderful if they might be out of date. Thoughts about typography’s online aesthetic, without context, can make authors once abreast of web type culture seem like digital hermits in the eyes of a new visitor.

And all manner of disappointment strikes when visitors who have invested time in an apparently valid resource later realize that it no longer applies. Timestamps on blog posts and bookmarks are a start, but what good is a point in time without context?

Messages that say, “this no longer applies” do help visitors avoid sinking effort into aged practices, but these messages immediately devalue the content upon which they have settled. Visitors most often leave with a sigh to begin their searches anew. Respect for the old technique erodes with the memory of professionals who knew about it “when it mattered.” It still matters, of course.

We lack a means of orienting ourselves in the broad context of our art and craft at any given moment. Something to which we pin our posts for posterity. Something to which we might bring a dusty old URL to have it appraised and plotted on a chart of milestones.

A quick reference against which our thoughts, writings, and tools might be measured, and by which visitors are encouraged to feel reverence toward our history and accomplishments.

What resolutions, operating systems, and browsers did visitors use? How much code, and what kind, was used to get type the way a designer wanted? How were web standards coming along? Which typefaces didn’t yet exist? And on.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we had such context?

Some facts about web fonts

Web fonts are evolving so quickly, it’s easy to get confused by the technology and terminology involved. Here are a few facts to help clarify.

• CSS @font-face has been a web standard for over ten years.
• Browser support varies, regarding font formats (and other issues like type rendering).
• Font files have many different extensions, like .ttf, .otf, .eot, .svg, and .woff, the emerging web standard for type.
• Here’s some code to orchestrate those various files in a bulletproof way, a la Paul Irish.
• Font Squirrel’s @font-face generator writes code so you don’t have to, and provides typefaces in various formats for browser support.
• Typekit also writes code so you don’t have to, and also provides typefaces in various formats for browser support. But when browsers or best practices for @font-face syntax change, Typekit takes care of that.

I often see folks asking, “What’s the difference between Typekit and @font-face?” The difference is this: CSS @font-face is a web standard that, right now, is hard to implement reliably; Typekit serves fonts via CSS using @font-face, and makes it reliable and easy. The code served by Typekit is standards-compliant, and is updated automatically for you as often as browsers and web standards change.

On leaving Vassar

Nice Web Type readers know I like to stay very much on-topic. You may be wondering what this post has to do with web typography. I’d like to explain the working environment at Vassar College that encouraged me to grow my passion and practice typography daily, and also reflect on my time there. More…

New: mobile Flickr screenshots

Readers who enjoy Nice Web Type mobile will find a fun surprise, starting today: screenshots from our Flickr group pool now show up in the stream alongside notes, bookmarks, and Twitter favorites.

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome frequent screenshot contributor Alberto Calvo as a NWT Flickr group moderator! I’d also like to offer hearty handshakes to moderator Tiffany Wardle and the folks at Typotheque, whose contributions to the pool have been wonderful and inspiring.

The screenshots in our pool showcase some of the nicest web typography I’ve seen anywhere, thanks to the good taste of these talented type gourmets. Try the slideshow, why don’t you?

From my Printed Books professor

Dug up this encouraging note from my Printed Books professor regarding Sophocles’ Philoctetes, which I had typeset, printed, and case bound that semester. Emphasis mine.

It’s a beautiful book, well-conceived, painstakingly executed with a fine attention to detail. I can’t believe you want to do web design: what a horrible place to do fine typography, a refined practice for which you obviously have an eye. You should (at some point in your career) hand-set a book in letterpress. You have the knowledge to benefit from that experience and I am sure you could make something remarkable. Type looks supernaturally good when printed from a real version of a typeface cast from good molds.

Years of bookmarkable goodness

As you might imagine, I’m looking forward to starting work with Typekit. The normal job-change roundup of loose ends, plus the excitement of soon being able to spend my entire workweek thinking about type, has me digging up all kinds of stuff I’ve saved for years in my Backpack or in bookmarks of one sort or another.

So I thought, in keeping with the idea of learning-in-public that inspired this blog, why not share this old (well, not really that old) stuff with you as I rediscover it for myself? It’s not all about web typography, specifically, but we’re fast approaching that long-awaited moment when we can drop such a qualifier anyway.

I don’t want to crowd out what’s current, so I won’t be adding these to Nice Web Type’s Delicious stream (as seen on the homepage).

Instead, check my Pinboard bookmarks tagged Type. Someday I’ll figure out how to more gracefully manage these two sets of bookmarks, but for now consider Delicious the new stuff and Pinboard the oldies-but-goodies. Suggestions welcome!

Type Manager for Typekit

Big news, friends: I will soon be joining Typekit as Type Manager. I’ll be caring for the library of typefaces, talking with foundry partners, and showing Typekit off in a variety of ways.

It is with exhilaration and humility that I take a place among my web and type heroes during this pivotal moment in web and type history. Since the sensibilities of web standards and the richness of typographic tradition began to coalesce in my mind, I have felt a strong urge to participate in what I consider a reawakening of typographic art and craft.

Despite the power and promise of an accessible, open web, technical and legal hurdles have for a decade kept web design professionals apart from our heritage as typesetters and glyph connoisseurs. Now is the time for revival.

Dust off those old type books. Lean in, close to your screen. Listen as the echoes of our elders inform the freedoms we can now express, thanks to solutions like Typekit that allow us to easily choose and wield time-tested typefaces in a web-native way.

Ask me questions, show me what you’re working on, and let’s move web typography forward together.

By the way, later I’ll have more to say about my time at Vassar College, and about the future of Nice Web Type. Stay tuned.

First time here?

Meet me and learn about the most exciting bits of Nice Web Type in this one minute video. And read some of my more popular posts, like How to use CSS @font-face and Where to get web fonts.

You may also be interested in Web Font Specimen, a handy, free resource we can use to see how typefaces look on the web. It first appeared in a special web fonts issue of A List Apart.

FontFriend bookmarklet

Handy tool from Matt Wiebe that lets you experiment with the typography of any CSS-typeset page on the fly, without refreshing or opening a new window. Check out this screencast, grab the bookmarklet, and start messing with typography you find online:

Read more about the Soma FontFriend project and contribute to its Google Code project page. This one was an instant bookmark bar item for me. Nestled right up there next to my URL shortener. Nice work, Matt.

Sticking with a typeface

I have always found value in moderation and patience, and I was taught to choose type with these virtues in mind. While the lab at my college had an enormous type library, my professors urged me to spend time with just one well-made type family.

Just one!?

Surely, I thought, the same typeface (even in its various styles and weights) could not solve every problem. Despite my doubts, I accepted the challenge and carefully chose a typeface. More…

Type Rendering

A short while ago, Paul Irish suggested that he, Zoltan Hawryluk, Ethan Dunham, and I share notes and begin talking about cross-platform/browser type rendering (that lasagna of complexity), in order to clarify the entire process for ourselves and others and find ways to make web type look better.

Now we’ve set some goals and would like to open up the dialogue. We’ll need your participation, and lots of expert advice, to fulfill these intentions. Follow Type Rendering on Twitter.

First stop: font smoothing detection

Check out How to Detect Font-Smoothing Using JavaScript to learn about an algorithm Zoltan has developed for determining whether a visitor’s web browser uses font smoothing technology when rendering type.

We think this might be a useful support detail. And in fact, details like OS/browser are a critical and necessary part of any discussion about the way type looks on screens, in web browsers.

So comment on Zoltan’s post and let us know what you think. And tell folks you care about how type looks on the web.

Why web standards matter

Web type has a quality no other type in history has ever had: it is fundamentally optional.

On the web, typography yields to HTML markup. The relationship of these two concepts can be debated, as can their simultaneous effect on authorship and meaning; but argument aside, qualities like size, spacing, and typeface choice – things that have traditionally defined typography – are, on the web, part of a presentational layer that can be switched on or off.

This separation has changed our art and forever affected written communication for the better, and it can be attributed to the cause for which we don blue beanies today.

Web typography depends entirely on web standards.

Web Font Specimen and A List Apart

Introducing Web Font Specimen, a handy (free) resource for web designers and typographers. So we can see how typefaces will look on the web. Announced today in an article I wrote to accompany the resource: Real Web Type in Real Web Context at A List Apart. More…

Now you try: Bello and Proxima Nova

Now that Typekit is no longer invite-only, I’ve released downloadable files for Nice Web Type likes Bello and Proxima Nova. Sign up for Typekit, grab my example files, and go. More…

Updated: Nice Web Type likes

Months ago, when I hastily began the series of CSS typesetting examples and typeface reviews I call Nice Web Type likes, there was no reliable, cross-browser method of using @font-face.

Since then, excellent folks like Paul Irish, Jonathan Snook, Ethan Dunham, Zoltan Du Lac, and many others have made a solution possible. Thanks to their efforts, I can rely on my understanding of how to use @font-face to deliver real fonts to every amenable browser.

I have applied this best practice to my Graublau/Lucida and Museo and Sans examples. The Bello and Proxima Nova example, served via Typekit, takes care of itself.

Thanks again to everyone from whom I have learned. Without your ingenuity, hard work, and selfless sharing, I myself would have little to share.

How to use CSS @font-face

Code up top for quick reference, details down below—we’ll prepare typefaces for use on the web, go through @font-face CSS line-by-line, and get the experts’ take on browser support. Updated May 2010 with new syntax from Paul Irish. More…

On Typographica

You owe it to yourself to absorb Typographica in its various forms. Stephen Coles, also of The FontFeed, articulates like few others and is always aware of (if not catalyzing) industry happenings.

This year on Twitter, following @Typographica has yielded thoughtful criticism of @font-face examples as well as crystal clear mini-reports (often in the form of OH quotes, and with emphasis on web fonts) from type conferences like TypeCon and ATypI.

Follow. Subscribe. You may also enjoy my Typesites review of Typographica from earlier this year.

Chat with Matt Wiebe

I recently had the pleasure of talking type with Soma Design’s Matt Wiebe (@mattwiebe). We discussed glyph absence, span kerning, and conditional solutions for CSS typesetting. Some of this exchange happened on Twitter, some via email. Reformatted here as a single conversation. Enjoy. More…

Where to get web fonts

“Where do I get web fonts?” It’s a valid question that deserves a reliable answer, to help us gain perspective on the changing crafts of web design and typography.

Let’s revisit WOFF, talk about EULAs, and list some places to find typefaces that are legal for use with the CSS @font-face property, including type delivery services, free font libraries, and curated lists of fonts available for web linking.

Moochers, go ahead and skip to the part about free fonts. More…

Word made me a designer

Microsoft, I owe you one. If Word hadn’t been so annoying and inconvenient, I may never have found graphic design.

In college, I was an undeclared major for the first two years. I took the liberal arts base, scanning the course catalog for ways to fulfill those requirements and learn what seemed most interesting. So I found myself in advertising courses, marketing courses, and any course I could find with a literary spin. I read a lot, wrote a lot, and used Microsoft Word a lot. More…

Rasterized type delivery

Thomas Fuchs (of script.aculo.us fame) has written Textorize, a Ruby script that makes subpixel antialiased, properly kerned, PNG images of text that look better than Photoshop-generated text.

Being able to typeset OS-X-quality text for CSS image replacement is fantastic (you don’t need me to explain this if you’ve ever tried to decide among sharp, crisp, and smooth antialiasing options in Photoshop); however, command-line typesetting isn’t something designers will jump up and down about. Unless…. More…

WOFF, the web standard for type

Jonathan Kew, Tal Leming, and Erik van Blokland have revised their earlier WebOTF proposal and are calling it WOFF.

This is a web standard for typefaces. In a nutshell, it explains that a WOFF font file is “simply a repackaged version” of font files like TrueType, OpenType, and Open Font Format, compressed and designed primarily for use on the web. More…

You put me on the map

Just a quick word of thanks to Johno, Craig Mod, and Rob Keller for featuring Nice Web Type in the attractive new aggregators they have made. Respectively: Type Daily, All Things Typographical (a Web Trend Map), and Type News. These sites are lots of fun, and I feel honored to be included.

To all of my readers, followers, and advocates: Thanks! Your interest has helped put Nice Web Type on the map. More…

How I use Twitter

Nice Web Type on Twitter is not repackaged RSS, although I do announce each new Notes post. Nor is it a personal stream of consciousness. Instead, its simple goals have been 1) to share what I know/think/find, 2) to listen, and 3) to not be annoying.

Regarding numbers two and three, I read everyone I follow, and I only post if I have a good, on-topic reason. (The rolling articulation of what constitutes “on-topic” is a constant challenge.)

But as for number one, here’s how I balance original content, found goodness, and other things I think are worth your time. More…

Favoring Twitter threads

I noticed some tweets on Friday and I wanted to share them with you, so I marked them as Twitter favorites. As you know, this means they show up as favorites here (mobile too). Sometimes this way of sharing works really well. In Friday’s case, it does not. More…

Typedia hearts Typophiles

Posted this earlier today as a reply in a Typophile thread of the same name. Typophile may have been fireballed today, or it might have other issues. If it’s up now (as you’re reading this), please look there for continued conversation. I will, of course, respond to comments here as well. More…

Why Typedia matters

Go check out Typedia, launched today. From the about text:

“In a nutshell, Typedia is a community website to classify typefaces and educate people about them. Think of it like a mix between IMDb and Wikipedia, but just for type. Anyone can join, add, and edit pages for typefaces or for the people behind the type.”

Here’s what I think. More…

Phonetic Friday

If we have to talk like Typographers, let’s at least do it right.

Lucida. Kabel. Univers. Anything ‘Neue.’ We have all had to say these things out loud (you must have, you’re reading a blog post about typographic pronunciation for crying out loud), and I have personally stumbled through my share of typeface names, type designer names, and foundry names. More…

On Tan

Jon Tan is one of the finest minds in web typography. Not because he “gets” the craft of markup/style (he does) or the art of typography (again, he does); rather, Jon shares what he learns—through both writing and doing. He makes examples and supplements, and is respectful of, and thorough about, informational sources. See Jon’s typography posts and his silo.

Jon recently announced a change in employment, writing:

“I’ll have a little more time to get involved with all of the discussions around web design and typography. I will write more, perhaps give a few more talks if folks are kind enough to invite me.”

Now’s the time, folks. If you don’t already, follow Jon on Twitter, subscribe to his blog, and welcome him back.

July retrospective

July was the best month yet for Nice Web Type. Two @font-face demos—one with Typekit fonts. A brand-new CSS technique, explained in detail. Two no-nonsense articles on the state of web fonts. Plus, a welcome video for new readers. And that’s only the stuff from the Notes blog. Folks, thanks again for giving me your valuable attention. In case you missed anything, here’s the scoop. More…

CSS content property does not translate

Quick note regarding last week’s pure CSS text gradient technique: the CSS content property does not translate.

UPDATE: This has been fixed thanks to a suggestion from Ciaran McNulty (see his comment below). More…

Pure CSS text gradient (no PNGs)

Folks, grab a copy of Safari 4. This is what we’ll be making today:

That’s not an image, it’s HTML text with real fonts provided by Typekit and embedded via CSS @font-face. You can see the actual thing here: Nice Web Type likes Bello and Proxima Nova. More…

Nice Web Type likes Bello Pro and Proxima Nova

Well, I had a blast making my third web type specimen/review for you: Nice Web Type likes Bello and Proxima Nova. Besides seeing a filthy new CSS technique (a pure CSS text gradient – no PNGs), you’ll find my thoughts about (and examples of) mixing script display type with more understated body text, using the best available ampersand, and the latest CSS browser support from Apple’s Safari browser.

You’ll also find my small description of using Typekit as part of the service’s technology preview. I used Typekit fonts to make this example (Bello Pro from Underware and Proxima Nova from Mark Simonson). More…

Hi from Nice Web Type

(Sorry about the poor audio quality!) More…

Type sellers, web fonts, and Typekit

You really have to feel for type sellers. Their business is changing.

Until there is a web standard for type, like .webfont or a permissions table, that ensures (or encourages) the legal use of typefaces on websites, type sellers have to simultaneously:

1. Figure out how to get their fonts into web designers’ projects safely and easily, and
2. Convince those same web designers that selling type for use on the web is something they actually want to do (really!)

Of course, a foundry could wait for the market to work itself out, but that foundry might forfeit profits today and risk being forgotten tomorrow, even wholly unknown to a new generation of typesetters. More…

Web font licensing: the basic idea

This font licensing stuff makes my brain hurt. Maybe writing will help. If you don’t write, you don’t know what you think. More…

New section: Fonts

Hey, there’s a new navigation item in our sidebar!

When you click it, you’ll be taken to a spiffy new page that lists the type reviews/specimens I’ve made using @font-face. It’s one of several things I’m doing to help folks find my examples, along with linking (via Twitter) to several parts of each spec/review. Please let me know if the occasional redundancy is annoying.

RGBa, text-shadow in Safari, Firefox

While crafting my likes Museo and Sans spec last week, I found that Safari 4 and Firefox 3.5 handle RGBa alpha channel inheritance differently. I’m not sure which way is the right way (or whether, as a matter of W3C spec interpretation, there is a single right way), but both approaches seem logical. Here’s what I learned. More…

Nice Web Type likes Museo and Sans

Today I’m happy to share my second web type specimen/review with you: Nice Web Type likes Museo and Sans. Enclosed, you’ll find my thoughts about (and examples of) typographic color, font stack understudies, combining serif and sans typefaces, and subtle suggestions about typesetting Museo and Museo Sans specifically. You’ll also find a few display-size techniques you might be able to use in your next project. I had a lot of fun putting this together, and I hope you enjoy it. More…

Can I use this font on my site?

A reader recently asked me (edited):

I was wondering about font licensing and @font-face. Can you use normal fonts for this or is it a copyright issue even if you have purchased them?

It’s a legal issue even if you own the typefaces you want to use.

The reason is that when type is included in websites via the CSS @font-face rule, font files are delivered to visitors’ browsers (just like images on websites have acted for years). A visitor could theoretically view source on a website, or look through his or her own browser cache, and have a free typeface – even if you, the web designer, paid for that typeface. More…

May retrospective

We had a great May*. You could say it was Nice Web Type’s first “real” month, full of posts, bookmarks, tweets, and favorites. New readers, followers, and visitors, thank you for giving me your valuable attention. In case you missed anything, here’s the scoop. More…

Skepticism about Typekit

From the post announcing Typekit:

While it’s technically quite easy to link to fonts, it’s legally more nuanced. [...] We’ve built a technology platform that lets us to host both free and commercial fonts in a way that is incredibly fast, smoothes out differences in how browsers handle type, and offers the level of protection that type designers need without resorting to annoying and ineffective DRM.

We’ll offer a free version of the service to get you started, and a low-cost way to grow from there.

There are plenty of reasons to be excited about Typekit, but the reactions I’ve heard so far are mixed. Things like, “Why should I pay to ‘rent’ fonts if I own them?” and “If I use a typeface with Typekit, then cancel my subscription, does my website lose that typeface?”

What I know is this: Typekit will provide an extensive FAQ. You and I can help with that by asking the questions we’d like to have answered. Why might you not use Typekit?

Criticism for web typography

Yesterday I asked for critique at Typophile (new thread here) regarding my Graublau Sans Web with Lucida sanserif type specimen. No responses yet, but sooner or later we’ll have a good discussion going. This got me thinking – where do you critique? More…

Nice Web Type likes

My favorite chapter in The Elements of Typographic Style might be Choosing and Combining Type. Bringhurst shows us that several typeface combinations (by designer, family, weight, style) work very well, and explains why. It’s fascinating. The only thing I’ve seen that comes close to this online are the teasers beneath some of Hoefler & Frere-Jones’ typefaces. I can’t get enough of these thumbnails. I wish each suggested combination had its own full specimen (alas, they just send you over to the other typeface).

Maybe combinations fascinate me because they encourage critique of typeface form, color, and nuance. When done thoughtfully, as in the cases of Bringhurst and H&FJ, specimens like these can teach, empower, and elate.

Nice Web Type readers know that I have recently called for more thoughtful critique of typeset text on the web. Examining combinations of web type is a good way to start. More…

@font-face caching issues?

Has anyone else noticed typefaces failing to load (stack understudy shows instead) or typefaces leaving blank areas (browser thinks typeface is there, but nothing renders) when using @font-face?

Update: check out Remy Sharp on Safari’s problem with @font-face. We’re getting warmer….

Focus on fonts that matter

With more typefaces, and more kinds of typefaces, available now than ever before, how do we know which ones matter? More…

Web Typography in your pocket

On Saturday I launched a small mobile version of Nice Web Type. Small because it’s just a single-column stream of bookmarks and Twitter favorites. To follow my regular Twitter stream, mobile users have their favorite Twitter apps. For posts (like this one), mobile users have RSS aggregators like Google Reader.

http://m.nicewebtype.com is a simple way to watch web typography – to see what I see – without having to sift through lots of unrelated material. Plus, it has a slick iPhone/iTouch icon. More…

Who else wants to understand hinting?

Last week I asked Typophiles, “to what rendering concoctions are our web type specs subject?”

What I’d like to know more about is how the hinting interacts with the rendering engine and anti-aliasing settings. If a typeface’s hints want to rasterize an outline one way, but the rendering engine wants to lay the same bezier in a different way, which wins? What does the math look like? Are values averaged? Overridden?

Thoughtful discussion and fun resulted, as usual, in the thread. Toward the bottom, Kent Lew shares a link to this Microsoft Typography piece on the basics of hinting. Didn’t completely answer my question, but now I know a little more.

How great is Typophile? Thanks, Kent!

Does @font-face trump suggestion?

Today, your average web typographer makes do with a quiver of techniques such as sIFR, FLIR, and Cufón, in addition to good old image replacement and thoughtful font stack planning. Many of these techniques are built to degrade gracefully in cases where visitors do not meet prerequisites like having a new enough Flash player, having Javascript turned on, and having desired (or even passable) typefaces available.

So if you think about it, our techniques amount to suggestion. “Here’s what I, the designer, the typographer, think would be best. What’s that? You don’t have the right setup? Ok, try this instead.” And so on.

The question is, for how long will design be a matter of suggestion? More…

Free fonts should be web licensed

If you’re going to offer a typeface for free, why not make it available for @font-face linking on the web? Free trials work. If you’ve made the wise decision to freely offer one of your typefaces in a single weight, why restrict its use online? More…

Delicious blog posting tool

This morning, Delicious auto-published the links I bookmarked yesterday as a Notes post. As you can see, it doesn’t come through so well. Delicious does refer to its Blog Posting Tool as an experimental feature, and I experimented. More…

links for 2009-05-06

This was an attempt at using the experimental Delicious blog posting tool. Please don’t mind the mess. More…

Typesites review: Typographica

It was a privilege to contribute to Typesites, a fine project curated by Kyle Meyer, and great to justify as “work” some of the many hours I have spent absorbing and admiring Typographica. More…

Bookmarks are back, web type Jenga

Thanks to a few manual backups and the recovery methods Larry Halff suggested shortly after the data loss, we have recovered most bookmarks from the Nice Web Type Ma.gnolia group. More…

Roundup: CSS font stacks

Choosing type for web text may seem as exciting as buying socks for grandpa, but lately some gifted and generous folks have shown us that we do have choices.

First, let’s take a look at what’s out there, bookmark a few key resources, and identify the best advice. Then we’ll boil it all down and learn to plan our CSS font stacks based on availability, context, rendering, technicalities, and typographic understudies. More…

Manifesto

What follows are the core values in which I hope to ground this project. Some principles, and a compass. More…

New: Notes blog

When I started writing Nice Web Type in college, I did not want to blog. Seven years, a backpack full of web typography resources, some moleskines full of thoughts, and time spent with a great bookmarking service can change one’s mind. More…

Uh oh

More than half of the great stuff in our right column flow used to come from Ma.gnolia and, as you may have heard, Ma.gnolia experienced severe data loss. For a while there was a chance of recovery, but alas. We’ll have to find another way to share things. When something is set up, I’ll tell followers.

Hello again

Folks, it’s been too long. Our humble sitemaker does this on the side, and there wasn’t much room there this past year.

But we’re back with a realignment and an open schedule. Let’s see how it goes.