You'll use Verdana, and you'll be happy, by Jeffrey Veen

You'll use Verdana, and you'll be happy

I remember sitting through demos by both Netscape and Microsoft marketing folks, showing us all the wonderful things that would be in the 4.0 versions of their browsers. Not the least of which was the ability to embed fonts -- any font! -- into our pages. Designers rejoice! The era of web typography had arrived.

I also remember them both saying, almost verbatim, "Well, no, actually. Ours won't work with theirs. But we think that because of the way marketshare is moving in the browser space..." And you likely know the end of that story.

I guess it's not surprising that embedded fonts never really took off. Looking back at Taylor's introduction to the technology in Webmonkey shows a world of promise, but also a confusing array of DRM-laced technology for "burning" fonts into web pages using incompatible file formats. In the end, the good designers realized that typographic constraint can give rise to tremendous creatively, be it with CSS or Flash.

All of this is in reference to BitStream, one of the original embedded font vendors, throwing in the towel. As they say in their farewell message, "Unfortunately, we do not build the browsers, nor can we control how they handle fonts ... We suggest that you contact AOL and Microsoft and encourage them to support dynamic fonts in the new releases of their browsers."

Ironically, the promise of controlling fonts is cited as a factor in their demise. And with that, another story in the history of the web comes to a quiet end.

This entry was written by Jeffrey Veen and posted 1 September 2005 at 9:56 PM. It was filed under Web Design. | View blog reactions

Comments

1. On 1 September 2005 at 11:40 PM Nivi wrote:

Isn't there this thing called Firefox that ten trillion people are now using?

Isn't it, like, uh, open-source and stuff?

And couldn't you build a font-distribution mechanism into it and try to roll it in a release. Or fork it? Or something?

2. On 2 September 2005 at 12:23 AM Mike D. wrote:

If ten trillion people were using Firefox, that might make that a more viable solution, but best estimates are that less than 10% of the world's internet users use Firefox. So even if you cooked up a browser-only solution (which you'd likely still need OS-maker and font-foundry cooperation on), you're still left with an audience of only 10% max for all your hard work. This is where something like sIFR excels because you're talking about a 90% compatibility rate.

Regardless, typography on the web doesn't look to be finding a panacea anytime soon, so in the meantime, we just have to do what we can.

3. On 2 September 2005 at 7:41 AM jordan wrote:

Look, there's a very simple solution to all of this -- just set everything manually, and make everything you post to the web an image.

;)

4. On 2 September 2005 at 12:35 PM Jimmy wrote:

Guys, this is already out there in the CSS 3 working draft. It's a module called "web fonts". ( http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-css3-webfonts-20020802/ )

This is all you'll have to do:

@font-face {
font-family: "Robson Celtic";
src: url("http://site/fonts/rob-celt")
}

5. On 2 September 2005 at 12:52 PM John Dowdell wrote:

Font-embedding technology is available today, in the range of the world's browsers, via the Macromedia Flash Player:
"Using fonts in Flash 5 and later"
http://www.macromedia.com/go/15403

If you're writing a book in a web page then you may not want it all in either a SWF or external XML file. For extremely text-heavy pages then the words may be more important than the presentation.

6. On 2 September 2005 at 6:16 PM Dalibor wrote:

I can hardly wait...

7. On 2 September 2005 at 7:32 PM Mike D. wrote:

The difference between a working draft and a useable technique is the difference between the theory of relativity and time travel. Call me when the teleport chamber is ready...

8. On 5 September 2005 at 2:45 AM Jens Meiert (of UITest.com) wrote:

Broad support of "@font-face" is appreciated.

9. On 10 September 2005 at 11:44 AM Sandra N. wrote:

Using images and Flash for typography is great as long as you don't care whether search engines index your site correctly or give it a very high ranking. (yes, you can use layers and ALT text, but it's just not as effective as plain HTML text).

As a designer I've been equally frustrated with the limited fonts, but the goal of most websites isn't just to look beautiful - site design should serve the purpose of the site, not the other way around.
Great call on the @font-face, though.