Typekit Fonts

[mahesh2k 0]

I found typekit while working on one clients theme. I noticed one query made to the typekit server for the font. Then i checked this site and found that it is serving fonts for the users. It also caches the font for the nearest CDN and the show it to users from there. I think this is one good idea to save on speed loading. By making queries to nearest CDN the speed remains high and you get fonts without any issues. In case of low speed, alternate font from the font family is used. This looks good service to me but they have limited plan for free users. In case of free users they can get this service with only two fonts, 25k page views and only for single website. Of course you can sign up using alternate emails and make more accounts but still there seems to be limitation.
Another thing is that you can have access to this service from wordpress.com. I think the plans for it are also paid and the service is available seperately in wrodpress.com market. For self-hosted websites, you'll see that there is option for plugin for registred members. It is possible to use the service from wordpress dashboard.
Who is using it ? Studiopress is using this typekit font in some of their paid themes for clients. Many other indie developers are also using this in their designs. I have found that some of these fonts are cool for simple themes or for profesional themes (not yet tried on dark themes).

There is also alternative from google web fonts where you can use the fonts for free and make queries as much as your want. As google datacenters are in lareg numbers you can use them in any way and any times you want. If you can't afford typekit service then that is the only optio available for developers as of now.

[mahesh2k 0]

Now that we're on topic of web fonts. Here is my opinion of google web fonts. These web fonts are available free of charge and with google and similar services they're going to work much better. I'm pointing to new service which makes google chrome and overall browser experience fast. It's like opera turbo which also caches these fonts and makes it easy to view them without having to use other fonts in the font family. Google web fonts are available in multiple types - professional, writers, fancy, funny etc. You can also check these fonts and sort them as per alphabetical order or downloaded times or popular fonts etc. Some of the popular fonts in google fonts are - droid sans, droid serid, open sans, nobile etc etc. Most of the google fonts are used in free themes from studiopress.I have two themes from studiopress where they have used these fonts for content and header. They load quickly and looks good on page. It's just that performance wise extra HTTP calls are increased because CSS file makes these calls (per font 2 calls or less).

Typekit or Google Web Fonts ? Typekit has more number of fonts in their library so in comparison to google there are more choices for you. Also the fonts are rare to find and usually not even available for download. I guess some are submitted by professionals based on royalty sharing. So that could be one reason they're made available only to typekit respository. As for google web fonts, more freelance designers or commercial apps use these fonts. These fonts are good but there are very few choices for professional designs. So in comparison to typekit you have limitation of fonts. Typekit has pageviews based restriction on accessing fonts. There is no such restriction for google web fonts. Typekit has free plan with lot of limits but google web fonts has no such limits. So it is upto you to choose the right service for yourself based on your graphic design needs.

[imjjss 0]

Sometimes special fonts really make the site stuny. I've been searching for a convinient way to use the fonts services. Currently I'm study Cufon. There website doesn't explain in details about how it is hosted. From my understanding, they have a fonts generator, you go there to generate the fonts, then, the fonts is probably hosted on their site. Then, on your website, you install some script to querry your fonts from their site.I might be wrong, but that's all I can figure out from their documents at the moment. It's nice to know that google also offer this service, I will check it out later.

[mahesh2k 0]

Yes. You got it right you have to add the query in your theme or static HTML page to the font server. That way the fonts will be fetched and cached by browser. So that seems to be the only thing we need to do. Cufons are cool to and in fact they're good because they don't allow highlighting feature. I have noticed that it's also hard to find cufons font and you have to go to query website and then to font server to see the original font site. In my opinion that is very difficult thing to do so i guess typekit and google web fonts are two cool options. I still search for alternative in order to avoid dependance on single service. So obviously i searched for the alternative.

Another alternative to this whole typekit vs google font is 'Typotheque. I have seen that this service is capable of serving small and big business sites. I guess they're charging per license. I have seen that it's not much popular and there is lot to be said about this service. I mean it alternative to both typekit and google web fonts. If its offering good solution then it's worth checking out. You can check their sites here. It's not cheap but it's not meant to be for individual users but more for corporate users.

[8ennett 0]

I might have to check out typekit and google then

Edited July 12, 2011 by 8ennett (see edit history)

[mahesh2k 0]

Another service which is similar to typekit is typefront. They also serve the font for the web publishers, corporate business and design firms. Only change here is that you can choose your own font if you wish to and upload it to their servers and use it on your own domain only. This way you can limit your licensing on your domain and avoid the public usage of the fonts. It is possible to do that in this method. There are few easy steps to use this service. First thing is obviously you have to sign up to their service. Then you need to add the respective font. Once you do that then it is time to add the domain names on which you wish to serve these fonts. I have seen this already in some of the sites which use this service and limited the fonts using cufon or typefront distribution. Once you add the domain the dashboard, all you have to do is use the query to call them to your site theme or html pages. Then immediately the font service goes live. No other domain than the listed one can use this service.

So in comparison to typekit this service is bit different in it's approach. They don't offer you any free font selection on their servers.You have to choose your own fonts. So that is one disadvantage. So far there seems to be no limit on pageview which is good again. Unless your pageviews and the queries get beyond the usage capability for the CDN or other hosting. There is no way they're going to limit the service. So like google web fonts this service is also one good alternative of typekit fonts. But for more fonts it is better to go for the typekits in my opinion.

[mahesh2k 0]

I'm in desperate search of font hosting these days and that's why i found one more service for font hosting. This font hosting service called kernest seems to be for serious designers and corporate users. I think their plans starting from 5$ onwards and are cheap/affordable if you're picking fonts and plan in bulk. Like typekit they have huge selection of both open source, free and commercial fonts. I have seen some of the open type and true type fonts in their repository and surely this collection is likely to be growing every month. I don't know how many good open source or public domain fonts are there in this kernest repository. So you have to check that on your own. Most of the commerical fonts are priced at 9$, 5$ and 15$. I think these prices are affordable to most of us and i think many designers will surely pay for it if the commercial font hosting is cheap on kernest. I mean this whole kernest looks more cheap than typekit to me. So if we compare the plans of the licensing of the fonts then i guess typekit seems to be more expensive in licensing and hosting. I think those who are on limited budget for their own site or for client then kernest is one good solution for them.
Another thing they're working on is konstellation. They deliver commercial and free fonts to subscribers. The price is 120$ per year and the lifetime subscription costs 350$. SO those who deal with fonts are getting a good chance for the font recommendation. I think this is one good service as an alternative to typekit. Oberall i like their service of font hosting.