Finding Right Web Fonts For Web Design

Jim Mowery, a self-described computer geek contacted me recently and expressed interest in submitting an article for our blog. I looked over his material and thought you might find it useful. Ben

Finding Right Web Fonts for Web Design

by James Mowery

Choosing good fonts seem to be one of the hardest parts of a web design. How can you choose a good looking font without using the same 

2 or 3 websafe fonts over and over? You can probably work a traditional font into your design, but even the standard Times New Roman or Helvetica isn't present on 100% of computers. Here are some ways to use the latest technology to make sure that you get the font you want on your site.

HTML 5 / CSS 3 Embeded Fonts

Let's get this out of the way first. It is possible to embed a font in your webpage and send it to users. This would be great, except for the fact that it has all sorts of issues. For one thing, it has major compatibility problems. You have to do quite a bit of CSS and HTML magic to get it to work exactly the same on all browsers. Even if you get it to work, then there's still the issue of getting a font. Technically, this counts as redistributing a font, so you can't do it unless you are licensed to use the font (which is expensive), or use a public domain font (which can work, but there are many bad free fonts out there and only a few good ones).

The Free Way: http://code.google.com/apis/webfonts/"

target="_blank">Google Fonts API

The Google Fonts API is a great free service which lets you use any of the fonts in their (somewhat limited) directory for free. All you have to do is add a header link to your HTML to import a stylesheet, and then you can use the font.

The Paid Way: http://typekit.com/" target="_blank">TypeKit

Same thing as Google Fonts API, only it costs - but they have a way bigger and better selection of fonts. You can sign up and use their service to legally and easily embed fonts on your site.

About the author: James Mowery is a computer geek that writes about technology and related topics. To read more blog posts by him, go to http://www.ledtv.org">led tv.