Web Typography

Web typography, the use of fonts on the web. Sounds simple enough. You design your web site, choose a font, and write the HTML & CSS code for your site and it looks good. However, it is not this easy. To be able to use a font in a browser, the font has to be available to browser, either native to the browser or be imported from another site. This is where it can get tricky. CSS has a @font-face tag and a URL link to the fonts you can use to pull in fonts to be used. Sounds like a plan that will work. But as Lee Corso says, "not so fast my friend".

First, to use a font on the web it has to be licensed to be used on the web, and not too many fonts are licensed for web use. If you use a font you purchased that is not licensed for the web you may be violating your end user licensing agreement with the font foundry (this is no small consequence). Second, not all browsers support the @font-face tag for all types of fonts. I don't really understand why the decision would be made to deploy a browser with less functionality (or stated another way, a competitive advantage) than a competitor's browser but there is a major player that did just that.

Why, you might wonder, is this lack of consistency even a factor to be considered? It occurs because there are no established standards regarding the licensing of fonts to be used on the web. The font foundries are close to having a set of standards that will protect their interests while allowing web designers to use fonts that are licensed for the web. Also, the W3C is working on a web font standard.

Don't despair, there is a solution to this problem, a middleman. This middleman is really a company that does all the heavy lifting with regard to negotiating the licensing agreements and technological issues for fonts. You pay a monthly fee to the company that pays for covering the license for the font as well as hosting the fonts. The good news is these fonts will work on any browser. The bad news is that not all fonts are available even to these middleman companies. But it is a start and for that we are grateful.