Typekit: Changing the Character of the Web?
What’s that you don’t see? The continued and (up until now) necessary overuse of Arial on Brettro Labs?? It’s true! Tonight in the Labs, Brettro took Typekit out for a spin to see how this new service performs.
Typekit? What is It?
Several weeks ago a colleague of mine forwarded me an invitation to join this new, still-in-beta service called Typekit. He told me that it was going to bring professional-class typography to HTML text on the Web. Flash forward a few more weeks and I read via Twitter that Typekit has launched. I’m excited!
Typekit is a web-based tool that makes typefaces available to websites without using Flash or images like .gif, .jpg, or .png. In doing so, it seems to satisfy both the licensing requirements for type foundries and the desires for web designers to have great fonts available.
How Does it Work?
Since I’m really just taking the ‘kit for a spin, I chose the free option for now, which puts a Typekit dingbat in the lower, right-hand side of my website. Since it’s free, I think it’s a small price to pay. Fortunately for paid accounts, this dingbat is removed.
At first, I thought Typekit was overly complex. I had to:
- Register for an account,
- Choose from 4 different account types (from free to enterprise),
- Browse the different typefaces available for the account type I chose,
- Create my type kit
After working with the product, though, I think the folks at Typekit have done an amazing job at making the process as simple as possible while remaining mindful of download times, on-screen type readability, and the licensing requirements for the typeface use.
Type: the Final Web Design Frontier?
I have to laud the folks at Typekit. They tackled a difficult problem and are working to be part of the solution. Is it the best solution? Or the ultimate solution? I’m not sure. Support for the @font-face CSS tag is already available in most modern browsers. But the proper licensing and distribution of fonts has kept widespread use of this tag at bay for quite some time. Though I’m sure there are issues with the Typekit method of font distribution on the web, I’m not sure what they might be yet.
And, after browsing the support forum for the product, I’m also pleased to see the Typekit folks actively listening to its user base to quickly implement changes and improvements.
For now, this seems to be the best thing going. And, from what I can tell, it’s working well. In the coming weeks, I’ll be implementing Typekit throughout the Brettro sites and—hopefully—in a few client sites to giving both Brettro and its clients the forward-leaning edge in Web design.