The Best of FontFonts on the Web, Part 1
Exactly three months have passed since we launched FontFonts on Typekit, the first service to offer reliable and secure delivery of non-system fonts for use on web pages. In those 90 days, hundreds of users have integrated FontFonts in their sites. Looking at the ways designers are using these fonts gives new hope for typography online. I gathered some of my favorites from the thousands of blogs, portfolios, and corporate sites currently using FontFonts via Typekit. The promise of professional alternatives to the same old web fonts is really starting to take shape, and there’s no better proof than the examples below.
Designer Portfolios
FF Tisa for Frank Chimero
FF Enzo for Ben Bodien
FF Meta Serif with TypeTogether’s Adelle for Design Intellection
FF Netto with Suitcase’s Temier for Interactive Things
FF Dagny with Porchez Typofonderie’s Le Monde for Mike Davis
FF Tisa with Mark Simonson’s Proxima Nova for Mark Boulton Design
Corporations & Organizations
FF Meta and FF Meta Serif for the Dallas Society of Visual Communications
FF Enzo for Roche Salon
Blogs & Personal Sites
FF Enzo and FF Tisa for Sam Howat
FF Dax for Brian Hoff
FF Providence Sans for Daniel Jansson, a Swedish blogger who is part of the peacekeeping force in Afghanistan
FF Meta Serif and a Baskerville ampersand for Dan Cederholm’s SimpleBits
FF Netto for Adam Wiggall
FF Prater Script for Brimborium (Florian Schroiff)
FF Dax for agenturblog.de
FF Dax [Web] for Mozilla CEO John Lilly
Communities
FF Tisa for CSS-Tricks
FF Dax for WordPress Themes (Chris Wallace)
FF Meta Serif for AllDevJobs.com
This is just the beginning. Now that Typekit has provided hooks for WordPress and TypePad platforms it is easier than ever to use the service. Seen other nice examples of FontFonts on the web? We welcome your own additions to this gallery in the comments below.
Update: Feb 23, 2010 — The stand-alone WOFF option promised back in November is now a reality. FontShop just released Web FontFonts.
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15 Comments:
I’m working on a redesign/rebranding for my personal site and blog that uses FF Meta (through Typekit), but I’m not quite ready to show it off yet (should be live within the next month or so, when I’ll comment again if I can remember).
FF Meta Serif and Sans
The application of FF Prater on Brimborium is really charming. It’s nice to see a such a quirky face used in a tasteful and appropriate manner.
I just finished a redesign of my site that uses FF Enzo and FF Tisa. I’m really happy with how it turned out.
Click on my name to see the site.
At the Nursing station uses website uses FF Tisa
http://atthenursingstation.com/
These are some really great uses. I would say that my favorite for now is FF Tisa.
Did I see a shadow of Dwiggins in Lift UX’s website? :)
I confess, that was my contribution to their contact form.
I read about Typekit last November, but not being very CSS-skilled I (wrongly) supposed that the implementation was somehow quirky.
After reading this post I decided to sign up to Typekit and give it a try, and in just ten minutes I completely replaced the bland Arial I used in my blog with Museo Sans by Jos Buivenga.
I cannot imagine the potential of full typography available for Web design, especially in such an easy-to-use and legitimate way.
Oooops! I just checked on Windows platform, any major browser, and the small size is not rendered smooth at all (for sure it’s Windows’ fault!).
It’s hard to decide whether to remove the font, or create alternative CSS for Windows…
German web designer Gerrit van Aaken uses FF Dax (for Mac users).
Type designer Nina Stoessinger uses FF Tisa.
webfonts.info uses FF Tisa.
Nice! But before your enthusiasm gets the better of you, try taking a gander at these on Windows (you know, that operating system used by 90% of the world)… they work, but they’re considerably less nice. Some look quite horrid. Better for display type than text sizes, but more importantly, check the font you want to use on both platforms, some render better than others. Typekit shows you cross-platform samples, so make sure you know what your type is actually going to look like (if your audience is primarily Mac-using designers, perhaps less of an issue than if your audience is more general).
At any rate, it’s a wake-up call: @font-face is still not ready for general use if it’s poorly supported by the operating system virtually everyone uses.
Great point, Paul. We recommend that users check the output on Windows browsers. You’ll find that FontFonts render significantly better than some “webfonts” because they were painstakingly hinted by FSI engineers for better display on non-Mac systems.
Most of these sites look absolutely awful in Firefox for Windows.
Same comment as above. I think we as designers like to impress only ourselves but if any of these sites are viewed by rest of the public (usually IE8 or 7) these sites/fonts render like poop. Why would you risk a client seeing such a site?
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