Comments on: A Rant About Font Embedding http://www.duckwizard.com/2009/07/23/a-rant-about-font-embedding/ Fri, 09 Apr 2010 21:26:32 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Jeremy http://www.duckwizard.com/2009/07/23/a-rant-about-font-embedding/comment-page-1/#comment-4900 Jeremy Thu, 23 Jul 2009 20:04:33 +0000 http://www.duckwizard.com/?p=75#comment-4900 I've been following TypeKit, and it looks like it will be an <q>interesting</q> solution. My only concerns are that I must either use their jQuery-based API (I won't comment on jQuery here, but suffice it to say I don't consider this a solution) or I must allow them to host the CSS for my fonts. That is all well and good — as long as I remain happy with the level of service they provide. They also seem to be keen on sticking vast amounts of data encoded into data: scheme URIs, directly into the CSS code. I'm not sure whether I like that or not. I'm leaning towards not. (<a href="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAACAAAAAgAgMAAAAOFJJnAAAACVBMVEX///8AAAAAAAB+UaldAAAAAnRSTlMAAHaTzTgAAABJSURBVHhevcmxDYAwDERRN1AwH7hwTZPsYybgJJwpQdhWirSIXz3d0WdNxihrwBJwiG6Jd5khh6O1jrw4UBn7g0Wr6DXgpB+6AZGRIZXPW9KMAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" rel="nofollow">here</a> is an example of a data: URI. Imagine if instead of a 165 byte PNG image, it were a 200KB font file.) Also, what's the cost? Will it be a monthly fee? Will I have to re-purchase fonts I already own through TypeKit? Will it be both? It remains to be seen whether TypeKit will be a cost-effective solution — I doubt embedded fonts are considered important enough by most people to justify any significant expenditure, and they might have trouble finding a price point that supports them. I’ve been following TypeKit, and it looks like it will be an interesting solution. My only concerns are that I must either use their jQuery-based API (I won’t comment on jQuery here, but suffice it to say I don’t consider this a solution) or I must allow them to host the CSS for my fonts. That is all well and good — as long as I remain happy with the level of service they provide. They also seem to be keen on sticking vast amounts of data encoded into data: scheme URIs, directly into the CSS code. I’m not sure whether I like that or not. I’m leaning towards not. (here is an example of a data: URI. Imagine if instead of a 165 byte PNG image, it were a 200KB font file.)

Also, what’s the cost? Will it be a monthly fee? Will I have to re-purchase fonts I already own through TypeKit? Will it be both? It remains to be seen whether TypeKit will be a cost-effective solution — I doubt embedded fonts are considered important enough by most people to justify any significant expenditure, and they might have trouble finding a price point that supports them.

]]> By: bunch http://www.duckwizard.com/2009/07/23/a-rant-about-font-embedding/comment-page-1/#comment-4899 bunch Thu, 23 Jul 2009 19:19:17 +0000 http://www.duckwizard.com/?p=75#comment-4899 One hopes that Typekit (http://blog.typekit.com/) arriving around the same time as adoption of FF3.5 and @font-face might help to steer the whole thing in a positive, font designers getting compensated fairly direction. One hopes that Typekit (http://blog.typekit.com/) arriving around the same time as adoption of FF3.5 and @font-face might help to steer the whole thing in a positive, font designers getting compensated fairly direction.

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