It would be great if we could use any font we wanted in designs for the web. But since we’re lim­ited to what’s installed on every­one else’s machines, cre­at­ing an image is the only way to make non-​standard fonts view­able online. Here are a few tips for cre­at­ing a web graphic in which type is the main subject:

• When set­ting antialiased type in Pho­to­Shop, exper­i­ment with the antialias­ing set­tings. The best tech­nique is depen­dent on the font, size, and colors involved, but I find “Crisp” or “Sharp” usu­ally work best. “Strong” is bad news — it usu­ally fat­tens the char­ac­ter shapes and you lose definition.
• Save as GIF or PNG. For images with flat colors, the JPEG format can create unsightly halos and noise, all at the cost of a larger file size.
• Use Flash only when nec­es­sary. Yeah, you can do some crazy wack ani­ma­tion in Flash, but save it for those jobs that really require intense motion and script­ing. Type almost always looks better as a GIF. (Though I hear the latest ver­sion of Flash (8) has improved antialiasing.)

Ok, what about sIFR? Now that I’ve fin­ished rail­ing on Flash, I better men­tion that there’s a new tech­nol­ogy that allows you to replace text ele­ments with custom-​styled Flash ele­ments on the fly. It’s a pretty excit­ing con­cept with just a couple of caveats: the user must have JavaScript enabled and the Flash plugin installed. Also, I feel like sites that use sIFR take just a tad longer to load — but I’ll let you be the judge of that.

Update: Rudy of FontShop Benelux reminds me that Flash can be an excel­lent medium for dis­play­ing type — if it’s done right. His proof: the incred­i­ble Our​Type.com by Flash mas­ters group94.