Web Font Service

Adobe Typekit

jpamental — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 13:39:22 +0000

Adobe Typekit jpamental Sat, 04/11/2015 - 09:39

Adobe Typekit was the first service to launch and was a complete game-changer for many designers, who then flocked to the service in droves. It has always had very user- friendly search, as well as one of the best blogs for both inspiration and education. Like the other sites mentioned here, Typekit supports OpenType features on select typefaces. While at this time there isn’t an easy way to know what fonts support them or which features are supported on a given typeface, that seems destined to change. Elliot Jay Stocks, creative director at Typekit, let me know that the team has plans for the very near future to highlight and utilize OpenType features to a much greater extent.

Web Font Service

Adobe Typekit

Monotype Fonts.com

jpamental — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 13:36:44 +0000

Monotype Fonts.com jpamental Sat, 04/11/2015 - 09:36

Also one of the early launches, Fonts.com from Monotype was one of the most prolific of the services with regard to the number of fonts available: launching with about 7,500 and quickly growing to more than 30,000. It is still one of the only services to provide both JavaScript and CSS methods of embedding, and it has always been incredibly sup‐ portive of my own efforts and those of the web community as a whole. Fonts.com lets you search typefaces by a number of criteria, including availability of OpenType fea‐ tures. It also offers an innovative way to include features in the web interface on assigned selectors, making it unnecessary to include your own CSS. Johnathan Zsittnik, eCommerce Marketing Manager at Monotype, let me know that they’ve been hard at work enabling more OpenType features in more fonts all the time, with more discoverability of those enabled fonts in the works, as well.

Web Font Service

Fonts.com

Google Web Fonts

jpamental — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 13:34:15 +0000

Google Web Fonts jpamental Sat, 04/11/2015 - 09:34

The Google Web Font service is free to use, and has a fairly extensive library of open source fonts. You do have to test thoroughly to be sure that the fonts are hinted well and render nicely on all platforms, and there may not be as many weights and variants available, but there are some real gems worth exploring. I’ve used them extensively in these demos in order to make the code as portable as possible: Roboto, Roboto Slab, Merriweather, Open Sans, and Source Sans are all excellent typefaces that stand up well everywhere I’ve tested them.

Web Font Service

Google Web Fonts

Cloud Typography

jpamental — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 13:31:36 +0000

Cloud Typography jpamental Sat, 04/11/2015 - 09:31

Hoefler & Co. launched its Cloud Typography service publicly in 2013 after a lengthy (and much coveted) beta period, and it was worth the wait. It’s one of the most “tunable” services with regard to including only what you want, and the quality is really out‐ standing. It’s one of the only services to work with just its own creations, but given the demand for its typefaces and how reasonable the pricing is, that seems to be just fine. Not surprisingly, it also supports OpenType features in its typefaces, with some of the most extensive and fine-grained controls over exactly which features you want to enable. This gives you a bit more control over the size of the eventual download. Some good documentation is available from their user guide.

Web Font Service

Cloud Typography