Nice Web Type

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?

Last October, Jon Tan suggested that, “75% of the world audience could see custom typefaces today if their EULAs allowed it.” That’s quite a number.

I asked Fonts.com why free fonts aren’t web licensed, and Fonts.com said it’s up to the foundries. Then I asked Jos Buivenga of Exljbris why he *did* decide to offer some typefaces for use with @font face, and he said:

Why not? :) People asked for it. And I didn’t see any harm in it.

Recently, Paul Hunt and others wondered aloud how type could be given away in this manner and still be beneficial to foundries. You can find highlights in Nice Web Type’s favorites. “Exposure” surfaced as a possible benefit to foundries, but do popular foundries – with quality multi-weight typefaces from which they can offer a single weight for free – need such exposure?

I think so.

My mom knows who Matthew Carter is. My mom! (He was featured in a magazine article; she mailed it to me.) Verdana and Georgia are how she knows him, because I talk about Verdana and Georgia, because I use and enjoy Verdana and Georgia.

Soon, she’ll send me articles about Jos Buivenga (and other folks). Here’s the license Jos employs for specifying how some of his free typefaces may be used:

Font license information

• This font is free for personal and commercial use
• The font file/software may be modified to suit design of system requirements, but strictly for your own (personal or commercial) use. You may not sell or distribute it
• Embedding (in PDF’s, Flash files and programs) is allowed
• Using this font for a @font-face decleration is allowed, but only if a readable link to my homepage is put on every page where this font is used. This link may be the size of a regular copyright notice. Update from Jos: “If you don’t want to link to my site, you can now put a little piece of text in your CSS.”
• This font may not be distributed or sold -not online nor on any media- without my permission
• This font is and remains (even when modified) the intellecual property of Jos Buivenga
• Exljbris (Jos Buivenga) is not liable for any damage resulting from the use of this font

Download Delicious, Fontin, Fontin Sans, and more for free, and you can use them via @font-face right now.

My next question for Jos: why aren’t Museo or Museo Sans licensed in the same way (free, @font-face with attribution)?

If web designers could use a single weight of each, with such an enormous audience, wouldn’t that broaden your exposure enough that you’d sell more of Museo and Museo Sans than you would have otherwise?