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Say it in Style : Cufon or Google Fonts ?

by loudmouthman

So Its May and I am writing about my April explortion so I guess posting late is my thing then.

Getting the Fonts a client wants to see into a webpage has been fraught with technical issues which tend towards the obscure from a clients point of view. From their perspective the graphics designer has created a document that they can see on a screen with no problem so why cant a web page do just that  ? When these conversations raise their head these are the moments which lead a developer to beat their head against the brick wall of customer obstinacy as they attempt to explain why text embeded in graphics becomes problematic in terms of  search, in terms of design and in terms of portability.

Google web fonts has been a good start in answering the how and the why as to the design issue but it has lacked a certain portability in terms of choices available to the designer. Cufon appears to fill the gap in the ‘pick your font and show it’ market but my experiences in the last few weeks demonstrate that the market for purchasing and implementing cufonts is tenuous and unsatisfactorily delivered.

Both technologies require javascript implementations in their preload and this can lead to limitations in site interactivity and functionality from a users perspective  as well as the usual hassle of playing browser support limitations with delivery.   They are well supported with plugins for WordPress and plenty of sample code abounds on the net to demonstrate the how to implement requirements.

Finally the End User License requirements of managing Fonts ( an aspect the copyright industry rarely seems to chase after as efficaciously as say Music or Video ) has been a constant source of delay and investigation and at the end of an hours deliberation over font texture and styles the lack of clarity on permission is a straw that breaks a back of a decision.

For now I am sticking with Google Fonts until such time as CuFon marketplace is mature enough to ensure simple delivery of Font content for a developer and webdesigner.

As for May; Well I want to take a detour back to Jquery and get a deeper appreciation of creating Ajax calls with live feedback such as the type required in status updates and scrolling completion status bars.

 

Thanks for reading.

 

2 Responses to “Say it in Style : Cufon or Google Fonts ?”

  1. Stephen - May 8th, 2012 at 07:35

    With a proliferation of type delivery services including hosting your own font files I’m surprised you didn’t look wider. Were Fontdeck or Typekit not an option?

  2. e11world - July 10th, 2012 at 17:40

    There are many other services for implementing web fonts but I found Google fonts to be the easiest and best at the moment (aside from the font collection which is growing). http://www.fontsquirrel.com/ is probably the best one out there in terms of number and styles of fonts and it is easy to use as well so it is my second choice. Cufon is almost dead to me right now.

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