Rob Keller<br />
RK>“We face an unbridgeable divide” — Richard Fink<br />
RK>This is just melodramatic, silly, and doesn’t help the cause.<br />
Too many late nights with the Classic Movie Channel, I guess. I even know who Hermione Gingold is.<br />
But to your points: I’ve visited your site. But my fictional colleague, persona, secret sharer, and sailing companion “Webmail”:http://readableweb.com/an-open-letter-to-retail-font-vendors/ is still confused.<br />
He’s asking why you don’t advertise the availability of web server licensing on the home page? He’s also confused by the line that says “Using our fonts in CSS with font-face is not allowed.” but yet it then says, a few paragraphs and a scroll later, that “The Web Fonts are licensed on a per-domain basis.”
Webmail is not known for his patience and he says he’s getting a headache trying to figure all this out. Plus, if it’s a commercial PDF you can do this, if it’s a non-commercial PDF you can do that. He says you need to provide a scorecard.
Even though you seem to have made an honest attempt at simplifying things, Webmail can’t figure out how he’s going to use your font without keeping your EULA under his pillow for quick reference and the problem is, he sleeps below deck in a hammock clutching his laptop.
But we both liked your fonts – BTW. Indic fonts are beautiful. Wish English looked that good.
regards, rich
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Richard Fink
@Rob Keller
RK>“We face an unbridgeable divide” — Richard Fink
RK>This is just melodramatic, silly, and doesn’t help the cause.
Too many late nights with the Classic Movie Channel, I guess. I even know who Hermione Gingold is.
But to your points: I’ve visited your site. But my fictional colleague, persona, secret sharer, and sailing companion “Webmail”:http://readableweb.com/an-open-letter-to-retail-font-vendors/ is still confused. He’s asking why you don’t advertise the availability of web server licensing on the home page? He’s also confused by the line that says “Using our fonts in CSS with font-face is not allowed.” but yet it then says, a few paragraphs and a scroll later, that “The Web Fonts are licensed on a per-domain basis.”
Webmail is not known for his patience and he says he’s getting a headache trying to figure all this out. Plus, if it’s a commercial PDF you can do this, if it’s a non-commercial PDF you can do that. He says you need to provide a scorecard.
Even though you seem to have made an honest attempt at simplifying things, Webmail can’t figure out how he’s going to use your font without keeping your EULA under his pillow for quick reference and the problem is, he sleeps below deck in a hammock clutching his laptop.
But we both liked your fonts — BTW. Indic fonts are beautiful. Wish English looked that good.
regards, rich
*I have no idea what happened to my earlier submit. Looked fine in preview
I am afraid your fictional partner/persona baffles me. I will forthwith only be referring to Richard to be more clear.
RE: Mota Italic allowing web embedding:
I appreciate you having a look to our “EULA”:http://www.motaitalic.com/info/legal/eula . It is a bit confusing so we have created a simpler “overview”:http://www.motaitalic.com/info/legal/eula-overview and we are working on some additional pages on the site to help clarify things a bit more. The EULA overview should be able to answer your questions if you couldn’t find them in the full EULA.
We have 3 font versions: Pro, Basic, and WEB. As the EULA states, Pro and Basic are meant primarily for “traditional” use, i.e. “offline” but while also allowing SIFR and FLIR. Those are covered first in the EULA (where it says no font-face). Then later, Section 5 covers everything regarding the WEB fonts. That is where it states they can be used online with font-face and are licensed on a per domain basis.
You will find all the information you are looking for somewhere. Admittedly, there is much improvement to be made and many more simple and clear ways to express our policies. We have been open for just over a month now though, and have had many, many other tasks keeping us occupied and from optimizing the current website. We are working on it now though and will have some more answers for you soon.
If you or anyone else has any specific questions for us we are always happy to have a chat and help you out. Just drop us a line at info@motaitalic.com.
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Richard Fink
@Rob Keller
You’ve made more of an attempt to bridge the divide than most, and it shows. I say keep going.
All I ask, as a web dev, is for no surprises. Price up front. License up front. That’s not too much to ask, is it?
With @font-face now a practical reality, you and the rest of the font design community are about to begin marketing to the general public.
A true story from yesterday as short as I can make it:
My wife is in an online program for a master’s degree in Nursing. Yesterday, she quoted from one of her books where it said that the two preferred typefaces for nursing papers were Times New Roman and Arial. After my going on for twenty minutes about all kinds of fontstuff, I got to the copyright part.
When I explained to her that if she were to print and widely distribute one of her papers using some other font (or Arial and Times NR for all I know) and wished to do so without legal risk, she could only do so with permission of the claimholder of the font.
She simply didn’t believe me.
When I told her the same held true if she wanted to distribute a custom edition of the Bible, either online or in print, she was even more incredulous.
And when I told her it still held true even if the font used was a recreation of a typeface used hundreds of years ago, she really thought I was pulling her leg.
But, according to those who make fonts, this is all true. Whether free or retail, you are demanding that first, permission be obtained.
This is about as close to claiming copyright on the use of language itself as you can get. No small matter.
And if this is the sweeping scope of the claims being made, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask for a high degree of ethics and forthrightness from the font-licensing side of the table.
I am hoping that ten years from now we are all prosperous and, looking back, we will be wondering what all the fuss and fear was about.
You’ve made more of an attempt to bridge the divide than most, and it shows. I say keep going.
Thank you.
All I ask, as a web dev, is for no surprises. Price up front. License up front. That’s not too much to ask, is it? ??
I completely agree. (In our case we try to provide that info in the EULA, EULA overview, FAQ, and on the purchase page.)
With @font-face now a practical reality, you and the rest of the font design community are about to begin marketing to the general public.
True, the potential market is larger and there are new people who will be interested in licensing fonts. And while your example is relevant to a great percentage of the population, it is not necessarily suitable for this discussion. Yes there are millions out there who have no idea how fonts or licensing work, but those people are not going to be going out trying to purchase fonts. At best they will search for a free font site. If they were to come across a commercial foundry and wanted a specific font, they would then be confronted with the implication and requirements of legally licensing them. This is why we have FAQs, tick boxes to say you read the EULA, and customer support. At the end of the day fonts are software, and just like any software you license it and are bound to specific usage terms.
This is about as close to claiming copyright on the use of language itself as you can get.
The font you choose to use has nothing to do with the language of your text (not speaking of the characters included in the font). The font is simply rendering the text. This is no different than if you have a proper license for the text editor you typed the text in.
When will be the day when all browsers support all fonts? Search engine readability plays such an intricate role in web design and creates limitations on what we can do.
When will be the day that a web page will show the same in any browser? Going beyond fonts, tables, margins, and forms all have different outcomes once they are published to the web. Hopefully the future of web design involves universal browser guidelines and function.
I want to applaud your selflessness in helping the community develop a standard way to test possible typefaces for web use. I emailed you awhile back crediting you as the creator of screen-based type specimens, and this project certainly drives that idea home!
FontFont on Typekit
The task to test possible typefaces for the web is more difficult than I think most imagine. Recently, FontFont, in my opinion one of the better foundries in the world, introduced several typefaces to Typekit. FontFont is made up of a talented group of informed experts, yet seems to have failed to redraw any of their faces to be worthwhile across different platforms when displayed at a size less than heading (display).
Part of the distinction between professional foundries and those creating free fonts is the ability to grasp the subtleties of spacing and form that make a useable body copy font. So, I was disappointed that FontFont was not able to provide styles that work well at body copy sizes for those that do not have Mac’s Quartz smoothing. I have not yet tested the Direct2D smoothing method (the upgrade to ClearType), and perhaps the fonts also work for that small audience as well.
Typefaces for Screen v. Print
I have a great deal of respect for FontFont and they may actually not be at fault for the fonts not rendering correctly at body copy size. The fonts they created styles for the web were never intended for the screen. This is an issue I brought up “a few months ago”:http://www.cooper.com/journal/2009/09/shadow_of_the_moon.html and I’m sure has been mentioned before and since.
Say we do reach a point, however, in which there are viable, for-screen drawn typefaces that stand up well across different operating systems and rendering platforms. Should we use your webfontspecimen? Yes and no.
Formally-Specific Solutions
Earlier this year Jason Santa Maria (a familiar name) gave a lecture at SVA in which he spoke about differences between print and web design. Certainly, I cannot speak upon Jason’s behalf, but comparisons between “well-designed magazine spreads and webpages that acted as content dumps”:http://vimeo.com/4394152 highlighted the idea to me that we often design for the web as if any content could go within a given space regardless of its meaning. (Feel free to correct me on any of this, Jason).
A Good Type Specimen
A List Apart readers are likely familiar with that everything I stated in the above paragraph, but may not be in application to type specimen books. There are certainly foundries which merely display waterfalls of their type (descending sizes) accompanied by full character sets. This would be the equivalent of the kind of content dump I believe Jason was describing (except in print, not web).
However, good type specimen books showcase the unique character of the typeface and provide examples of how it could be used. For example, Hoefler & Frere-Jones, a foundry that makes typefaces appealing to many large corporations, has “a slideshow of possible usage”:http://typography.com/fonts/font_overview.php?productLineID=100013 for each one of their typefaces on their website.
Showcasing the personality, uniqueness and intended usage of a typeface is an obvious way to make a good specimen. That’s what makes things like your “Bello specimen”:http://nicewebtype.com/fonts/bello-and-proxima-nova/, with a motorcycle in the background, more appealing, and this holistic solution less appealing.
A Typographer’s Test
What you’re presenting to us feels less like a specimen and more like a test. Something people can rely upon to see how their typeface stands up in common situations online. That seems like a good thing. Type is subjective, and good type in one place may not be good type in another, but if your test was thorough—exhaustive in its process—it could end up helping type designers more than anyone else.
Certainly, I cannot speak upon Jason’s behalf, but comparisons between well-designed magazine spreads and webpages that acted as content dumps highlighted the idea to me that we often design for the web as if any content could go within a given space regardless of its meaning. (Feel free to correct me on any of this, Jason).
True, though the two don’t need to be mutually exclusive. We do design websites so that any kind of content can sit on our pages, at least adequately, though I don’t always believe appropriately. The best print publications have that exact same flexibility, basically allowing their design system to adapt when an art director decides it should.
And I agree about most type specimens being cookie cutter waterfalls, but I also see both sides of this. Sometimes, and with some foundries or typefaces, a very vanilla display might be suitable enough. Some foundries might wish to display their typefaces like that because it puts the impetus on the designer: we provide the instrument, you make it sing.
Though, I do tend to prefer the H&FJ; method myself. Context goes a long way for me when I’m looking to buy something. Seeing how someone matches a tie and a shirt together might make me buy that tie rather that just seeing the tie floating on a background of white.
I was disappointed that FontFont was not able to provide styles that work well at body copy sizes for those that do not have Mac’s Quartz smoothing. […] I have a great deal of respect for FontFont and they may actually not be at fault for the fonts not rendering correctly at body copy size.
This has everything to do with the complexity of type rendering, which I am only “beginning to understand”:http://typerendering.com and which generous experts like Thomas Phinney help explain by sharing things like “Browser Choice vs Font Rendering”:http://www.thomasphinney.com/2009/12/browser-choice-vs-font-rendering/ (a recent post on his blog).
Good type specimen books showcase the unique character of the typeface and provide examples of how it could be used. […] Showcasing the personality, uniqueness and intended usage of a typeface is an obvious way to make a good specimen. […] What you’re presenting to us feels less like a specimen and more like a test.
In my experience, Web Font Specimen is more useful in choosing a typeface for web use than you have inferred here by juxtaposing it with the idea of tailored specimens. In fact, examining the WFS specimen of a typeface has repeatedly given me a better idea of that typeface’s suitability for my project-at-hand than stumbling upon the same typeface in use as I browse the web. Similarly, I doubt its utility would wane if even tailored specimens of the same typeface were as readily available.
That said, you bring up an excellent point. And you’re right to reference both Jason’s thoughts about art direction and H&FJ;‘s excellent work (in case you haven’t seen it, read “this post by/about their graphic designer, Brian Hennings”:http://www.typography.com/ask/showBlog.php?blogID=208 and his work).
Tailored specimens are inspiring. If they resonate with us, we discover a hint toward the emotions for which we are actively choosing a typeface other than the ones, “good enough,” that exist at our fingertips. Tailored specimens, like beautifully typeset web projects, breathe life into letters in ways no standard specimen can.
Web Font Specimen provides a benchmark for quality and helps us compare typefaces in common context. Necessarily, to achieve such goals makes it a relatively uninspiring sample … albeit one that our craft, at this time of reawakening, desperately needs.
My hope is that folks who sell type and designers with an eye toward art direction will think, as you have here, about how much more inspirational a type specimen can be. That’s why I encourage folks to take this, tear it up, use pieces, and make it better—and not only the specimen itself!
I wrote this ALA article so as to share for similar dissection the idea of real web type in real web context. Thank you very much for your critique. Let’s continue talking. :)
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jshin
Thank you for your article as well as your contribution to web developers, it’s a relief to know that we can now safely “sample” texts and see their web renderings before committing to buying them. I haven’t had to go through the long and lugubrious process yet since I’ve just begun experimenting with web-design but I’m sure I’ll add web font specimen to my bag of tricks- at least until that glorious day of browser unity and peace comes around the corner.
20 Reader Comments
Back to the ArticleRichard Fink
Rob Keller<br /> RK>“We face an unbridgeable divide” — Richard Fink<br /> RK>This is just melodramatic, silly, and doesn’t help the cause.<br /> Too many late nights with the Classic Movie Channel, I guess. I even know who Hermione Gingold is.<br /> But to your points: I’ve visited your site. But my fictional colleague, persona, secret sharer, and sailing companion “Webmail”:http://readableweb.com/an-open-letter-to-retail-font-vendors/ is still confused.<br /> He’s asking why you don’t advertise the availability of web server licensing on the home page? He’s also confused by the line that says “Using our fonts in CSS withfont-face is not allowed.” but yet it then says, a few paragraphs and a scroll later, that “The Web Fonts are licensed on a per-domain basis.”Webmail is not known for his patience and he says he’s getting a headache trying to figure all this out. Plus, if it’s a commercial PDF you can do this, if it’s a non-commercial PDF you can do that. He says you need to provide a scorecard.
Even though you seem to have made an honest attempt at simplifying things, Webmail can’t figure out how he’s going to use your font without keeping your EULA under his pillow for quick reference and the problem is, he sleeps below deck in a hammock clutching his laptop.
But we both liked your fonts – BTW. Indic fonts are beautiful. Wish English looked that good.
regards, rich
Richard Fink
@Rob Keller
RK>“We face an unbridgeable divide” — Richard Fink
RK>This is just melodramatic, silly, and doesn’t help the cause.
Too many late nights with the Classic Movie Channel, I guess. I even know who Hermione Gingold is.
But to your points: I’ve visited your site. But my fictional colleague, persona, secret sharer, and sailing companion “Webmail”:http://readableweb.com/an-open-letter-to-retail-font-vendors/ is still confused. He’s asking why you don’t advertise the availability of web server licensing on the home page? He’s also confused by the line that says “Using our fonts in CSS with font-face is not allowed.” but yet it then says, a few paragraphs and a scroll later, that “The Web Fonts are licensed on a per-domain basis.”
Webmail is not known for his patience and he says he’s getting a headache trying to figure all this out. Plus, if it’s a commercial PDF you can do this, if it’s a non-commercial PDF you can do that. He says you need to provide a scorecard.
Even though you seem to have made an honest attempt at simplifying things, Webmail can’t figure out how he’s going to use your font without keeping your EULA under his pillow for quick reference and the problem is, he sleeps below deck in a hammock clutching his laptop.
But we both liked your fonts — BTW. Indic fonts are beautiful. Wish English looked that good.
regards, rich
*I have no idea what happened to my earlier submit. Looked fine in preview
Rob Keller
Dear Richard,
I am afraid your fictional partner/persona baffles me. I will forthwith only be referring to Richard to be more clear.
RE: Mota Italic allowing web embedding:
I appreciate you having a look to our “EULA”:http://www.motaitalic.com/info/legal/eula . It is a bit confusing so we have created a simpler “overview”:http://www.motaitalic.com/info/legal/eula-overview and we are working on some additional pages on the site to help clarify things a bit more. The EULA overview should be able to answer your questions if you couldn’t find them in the full EULA.
We have 3 font versions: Pro, Basic, and WEB. As the EULA states, Pro and Basic are meant primarily for “traditional” use, i.e. “offline” but while also allowing SIFR and FLIR. Those are covered first in the EULA (where it says no
font-face). Then later, Section 5 covers everything regarding the WEB fonts. That is where it states they can be used online withfont-face and are licensed on a per domain basis.You will find all the information you are looking for somewhere. Admittedly, there is much improvement to be made and many more simple and clear ways to express our policies. We have been open for just over a month now though, and have had many, many other tasks keeping us occupied and from optimizing the current website. We are working on it now though and will have some more answers for you soon.
If you or anyone else has any specific questions for us we are always happy to have a chat and help you out. Just drop us a line at info@motaitalic.com.
Sorry for any confusion.
Cheers,
Rob
PS— Thank you for the compliments on Vesper.
Richard Fink
@Rob Keller
You’ve made more of an attempt to bridge the divide than most, and it shows. I say keep going.
All I ask, as a web dev, is for no surprises. Price up front. License up front. That’s not too much to ask, is it?
With @font-face now a practical reality, you and the rest of the font design community are about to begin marketing to the general public.
A true story from yesterday as short as I can make it:
My wife is in an online program for a master’s degree in Nursing. Yesterday, she quoted from one of her books where it said that the two preferred typefaces for nursing papers were Times New Roman and Arial. After my going on for twenty minutes about all kinds of fontstuff, I got to the copyright part.
When I explained to her that if she were to print and widely distribute one of her papers using some other font (or Arial and Times NR for all I know) and wished to do so without legal risk, she could only do so with permission of the claimholder of the font.
She simply didn’t believe me.
When I told her the same held true if she wanted to distribute a custom edition of the Bible, either online or in print, she was even more incredulous.
And when I told her it still held true even if the font used was a recreation of a typeface used hundreds of years ago, she really thought I was pulling her leg.
But, according to those who make fonts, this is all true. Whether free or retail, you are demanding that first, permission be obtained.
This is about as close to claiming copyright on the use of language itself as you can get. No small matter.
And if this is the sweeping scope of the claims being made, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask for a high degree of ethics and forthrightness from the font-licensing side of the table.
I am hoping that ten years from now we are all prosperous and, looking back, we will be wondering what all the fuss and fear was about.
Rich
Rob Keller
@Rich
Thank you.
I completely agree. (In our case we try to provide that info in the EULA, EULA overview, FAQ, and on the purchase page.)
True, the potential market is larger and there are new people who will be interested in licensing fonts. And while your example is relevant to a great percentage of the population, it is not necessarily suitable for this discussion. Yes there are millions out there who have no idea how fonts or licensing work, but those people are not going to be going out trying to purchase fonts. At best they will search for a free font site. If they were to come across a commercial foundry and wanted a specific font, they would then be confronted with the implication and requirements of legally licensing them. This is why we have FAQs, tick boxes to say you read the EULA, and customer support. At the end of the day fonts are software, and just like any software you license it and are bound to specific usage terms.
The font you choose to use has nothing to do with the language of your text (not speaking of the characters included in the font). The font is simply rendering the text. This is no different than if you have a proper license for the text editor you typed the text in.
Web Print Brand
When will be the day when all browsers support all fonts? Search engine readability plays such an intricate role in web design and creates limitations on what we can do.
When will be the day that a web page will show the same in any browser? Going beyond fonts, tables, margins, and forms all have different outcomes once they are published to the web. Hopefully the future of web design involves universal browser guidelines and function.
goldenkrishna
Tim-
I want to applaud your selflessness in helping the community develop a standard way to test possible typefaces for web use. I emailed you awhile back crediting you as the creator of screen-based type specimens, and this project certainly drives that idea home!
FontFont on Typekit
The task to test possible typefaces for the web is more difficult than I think most imagine. Recently, FontFont, in my opinion one of the better foundries in the world, introduced several typefaces to Typekit. FontFont is made up of a talented group of informed experts, yet seems to have failed to redraw any of their faces to be worthwhile across different platforms when displayed at a size less than heading (display).
Part of the distinction between professional foundries and those creating free fonts is the ability to grasp the subtleties of spacing and form that make a useable body copy font. So, I was disappointed that FontFont was not able to provide styles that work well at body copy sizes for those that do not have Mac’s Quartz smoothing. I have not yet tested the Direct2D smoothing method (the upgrade to ClearType), and perhaps the fonts also work for that small audience as well.
Typefaces for Screen v. Print
I have a great deal of respect for FontFont and they may actually not be at fault for the fonts not rendering correctly at body copy size. The fonts they created styles for the web were never intended for the screen. This is an issue I brought up “a few months ago”:http://www.cooper.com/journal/2009/09/shadow_of_the_moon.html and I’m sure has been mentioned before and since.
Say we do reach a point, however, in which there are viable, for-screen drawn typefaces that stand up well across different operating systems and rendering platforms. Should we use your webfontspecimen? Yes and no.
Formally-Specific Solutions
Earlier this year Jason Santa Maria (a familiar name) gave a lecture at SVA in which he spoke about differences between print and web design. Certainly, I cannot speak upon Jason’s behalf, but comparisons between “well-designed magazine spreads and webpages that acted as content dumps”:http://vimeo.com/4394152 highlighted the idea to me that we often design for the web as if any content could go within a given space regardless of its meaning. (Feel free to correct me on any of this, Jason).
A Good Type Specimen
A List Apart readers are likely familiar with that everything I stated in the above paragraph, but may not be in application to type specimen books. There are certainly foundries which merely display waterfalls of their type (descending sizes) accompanied by full character sets. This would be the equivalent of the kind of content dump I believe Jason was describing (except in print, not web).
However, good type specimen books showcase the unique character of the typeface and provide examples of how it could be used. For example, Hoefler & Frere-Jones, a foundry that makes typefaces appealing to many large corporations, has “a slideshow of possible usage”:http://typography.com/fonts/font_overview.php?productLineID=100013 for each one of their typefaces on their website.
Showcasing the personality, uniqueness and intended usage of a typeface is an obvious way to make a good specimen. That’s what makes things like your “Bello specimen”:http://nicewebtype.com/fonts/bello-and-proxima-nova/, with a motorcycle in the background, more appealing, and this holistic solution less appealing.
A Typographer’s Test
What you’re presenting to us feels less like a specimen and more like a test. Something people can rely upon to see how their typeface stands up in common situations online. That seems like a good thing. Type is subjective, and good type in one place may not be good type in another, but if your test was thorough—exhaustive in its process—it could end up helping type designers more than anyone else.
Jason Santa Maria
True, though the two don’t need to be mutually exclusive. We do design websites so that any kind of content can sit on our pages, at least adequately, though I don’t always believe appropriately. The best print publications have that exact same flexibility, basically allowing their design system to adapt when an art director decides it should.
And I agree about most type specimens being cookie cutter waterfalls, but I also see both sides of this. Sometimes, and with some foundries or typefaces, a very vanilla display might be suitable enough. Some foundries might wish to display their typefaces like that because it puts the impetus on the designer: we provide the instrument, you make it sing.
Though, I do tend to prefer the H&FJ; method myself. Context goes a long way for me when I’m looking to buy something. Seeing how someone matches a tie and a shirt together might make me buy that tie rather that just seeing the tie floating on a background of white.
Thanks for the comment!
Tim Brown
This has everything to do with the complexity of type rendering, which I am only “beginning to understand”:http://typerendering.com and which generous experts like Thomas Phinney help explain by sharing things like “Browser Choice vs Font Rendering”:http://www.thomasphinney.com/2009/12/browser-choice-vs-font-rendering/ (a recent post on his blog).
In my experience, Web Font Specimen is more useful in choosing a typeface for web use than you have inferred here by juxtaposing it with the idea of tailored specimens. In fact, examining the WFS specimen of a typeface has repeatedly given me a better idea of that typeface’s suitability for my project-at-hand than stumbling upon the same typeface in use as I browse the web. Similarly, I doubt its utility would wane if even tailored specimens of the same typeface were as readily available.
That said, you bring up an excellent point. And you’re right to reference both Jason’s thoughts about art direction and H&FJ;‘s excellent work (in case you haven’t seen it, read “this post by/about their graphic designer, Brian Hennings”:http://www.typography.com/ask/showBlog.php?blogID=208 and his work).
Tailored specimens are inspiring. If they resonate with us, we discover a hint toward the emotions for which we are actively choosing a typeface other than the ones, “good enough,” that exist at our fingertips. Tailored specimens, like beautifully typeset web projects, breathe life into letters in ways no standard specimen can.
Web Font Specimen provides a benchmark for quality and helps us compare typefaces in common context. Necessarily, to achieve such goals makes it a relatively uninspiring sample … albeit one that our craft, at this time of reawakening, desperately needs.
My hope is that folks who sell type and designers with an eye toward art direction will think, as you have here, about how much more inspirational a type specimen can be. That’s why I encourage folks to take this, tear it up, use pieces, and make it better—and not only the specimen itself!
I wrote this ALA article so as to share for similar dissection the idea of real web type in real web context. Thank you very much for your critique. Let’s continue talking. :)
jshin
Thank you for your article as well as your contribution to web developers, it’s a relief to know that we can now safely “sample” texts and see their web renderings before committing to buying them. I haven’t had to go through the long and lugubrious process yet since I’ve just begun experimenting with web-design but I’m sure I’ll add web font specimen to my bag of tricks- at least until that glorious day of browser unity and peace comes around the corner.