Fonts &
   SiteCM

Important Considerations

There are a few major things we take in to consideration when it comes to using this new technology:

1)    Supported Fonts

You can use OpenType (”opentype”, .otf) and TrueType (”truetype”, .ttf) fonts in Firefox, Safari, Opera and Chrome. Internet Explorer decided to go with a more proprietary format and uses Embedded OpenType (.eot) fonts.

2)    Supported Browsers

The @font-face rule works in these versions or higher of the following browsers: IE7, FF3.5, Safari 4.0, Opera 10, and Google Chrome. Remember to include a relevant and useful font stack to include those who may not have the latest version of major browsers.

3)    Are we allowed to use this font?

Just because a font has been purchased does not mean it is licensed to be used on the web. Most font foundries have a license on their fonts that only allows it to be used by a specific number of users. By using the font online, you are making it available to an infinite number of users, therefore violating their license.

The good news is that there are thousands of fonts out there that are free for commercial use, and have even been tested on the web already.

A great site to check out is Font Squirrel. You may be able to find a very close match to a licensed font that you wanted to use in your design. They provide you with the font file for your design, and provide us with all the files we need to implement it on your site.

4)    How does it look?

When using a non-standard web font, we need to find out how your font will behave online. Some browsers will not render your font nicely resulting in text that is pixilated and not at all pleasing to read. 

The easiest way a designer can simulate how a font will look on the web is to set the anti-aliasing to “none” in photoshop and view all the text that way.

 

Tip: Almost all fonts will look great as larger headings, but may not render very well in browsers at smaller sizes. It may be safe to use non-standard web font for headings only, and then a standard web font for your body text.

Click here to see samples of non-standard web fonts that we think will look great on your site

For an additional cost we can test your font across browsers and formatting options to make sure that it looks up to standard and provide you with documentation on configurations that might cause problems. Font Squirrel provides demos for their font packages; however they only show you one standard size and format.

If you have a knowledge of css and would like to test your font, view our page on How to Implement

It is always recommended to have tested your fonts before your design is approved by a client. We are happy to work with you to come up with a solution if you want to use a non-standard font on your site. Please contact us