Work on the Heavy/ Extra Bold weight of Silverback is progressing nicely (if not frantically). First pass at the Glyphs is done, with a ton of tweaks ahead. No spacing or kerning is really done yet, but that will come in time. This weight along with the regular will be used to interpolate the rest of the family. I am also curious to try Tim Ahren’s Font ReMix Tools to develop the condensed and expanded weights. Hopefully I can get far enough along to make the submission deadline for FontFont’s spring meeting.
Last night FontFont announce that more than 30 of the most successful FontFont families are now available as Web FontFonts®, including FF DIN®, FF Meta®, FF Dax®, andFF Kievit®.
Finally we are getting to the point where the fonts used for print branding can be utilized on the web, thereby allowing for consistent branding across all media.
FontFont provides the following points for why Web FontFonts:
- They look great. Great care was taken to optimize Web FontFonts for display on nearly any screen, whether that screen is connected to a Mac or driven by Windows with ClearType switched on.
- They are easy to buy. Buying a Web FontFont is as easy as licensing a conventional desktop font. There is no subscription to sign up for and you pay only for the font you need. Pricing is determined not by domain or bandwidth, but by the average monthly pageviews for all websites in the licensed organization.
- They work on most major browsers. Web FontFonts are delivered in EOT Lite and WOFF, the two formats supported by the most commonly used browsers: Internet Explorer® and Firefox®, covering more than 90% of all web visitors. We expect other browsers to join in implementing WOFF soon. A free Typekit hosting option extends compatibility to Safari® and Chrome® users.
- No DRM. Because webfonts are essentially shared with everyone who visits a webpage that uses them, some font makers may want to use some sort of DRM to prevent unauthorized use. Not us. Web FontFonts come in formats that work only on websites (not in any desktop app), and do so without crippleware or user interruptions.
- They speak more languages. The FontFont library has always offered top class language support, extending many of the most popular families to include character sets like Central European, Cyrillic, and Greek. Web FontFonts are no exception. The Pro versions contain the same language support as their desktop companions.
More info available at Fontshop’s Blog. Technical info on what you get is here.
Don’t be too surprised if this blog is update to FF DIN or FF Milo sometime in the future.
Got this via a FontFeed update, but thought it was worth passing along. In April, (does that really make this new?) FontShop introduced a new End User Licence Agreement—EULA. I know, no-one ever reads that thing and frankly who cares? Well, anyone who purchases typefaces should. Particularly given how reasonable the newly introduced EULA is. In short,
The most relevant change is that FontFont now allows embedding in any non-?editable document, application, and even device – be it for “commercial” or “non-?commercial” use –, as long as the font is embedded as a subset in a secure format, so that only viewing and printing but not editing is possible.
As a graphic designer, I appreciate this since it gives me the ability legally to embed these fonts into PDF and other MS office docs. Was this happening before? You bet. But now we have a reasonable and legal means of doing so. As a type designer, I can only hope this could expand exposure and use of any faces I design.
I reccomend reviewing the new EULA highlights and the discussion that follows via the FontFeed.
FontShop has just posted a story on the FontFeed about the creation of FF Unit Slab. For those interested in gaining insights into developing font super-families it is a great read. Plus, it highlights the work of some of most respected contemporary type-designers—namely Erik Spiekermann and Christian Schwartz with Kris Sowersby.
I just saw that FontFont has released an OT update to Nick Shinn‘s Oneleigh.
For those unfamiliar with Mr. Shinn’s work I definitely recommend checking out his type catalogue (via Fontshop). Mr. Shinn’s catalogue is quite impressive and daunting to the neophyte type designer like myself. I am particularly smitten with his Modern Suite—the Figgins Sans and Scotch Modern. It is one of the nicest super families I’ve seen, plus Scotch Serifs are becoming trendy.
Enough bald flattery. The point of this post is the OT update to Oneleigh. Oneleigh’s opentype features, I believe, highlight what will eventually be the norm for font development. Many fonts now include proper small caps, but features like discretionary ligatures, lining figures, ordinals, and proper fractions are becoming expected. The Oneleigh OT update has all these and more. Definitely worth checking out.
It goes without saying that I am a huge fan of FontFont’s type catalogue. So I was rather pleased to see this fontfeed from Fontshop. The FF Unit super family has gotten an new member, FF Unit Slab. I’ve comment before about the resurgence of slabs recently. It nice to see such a high quality slab. I’m always impressed with the work of Christian Schwartz, Erik Spiekermann, and Kris Sowersby. FF Meta serif was nice.
FF Unit Slab - nice!
Another Slab worth mentioning is Mitja Miklavic’s FF Tisa. Thin and Light weights have been added to regular, med, and bold.
FF Tisa 2
