cufon – is it the answer to my web design dreams?
Posted by Lindsayanng on July 17th, 2009
So i was just looking at some of the best graphic design company’s websites for inspiration. I am designing our graphic/web design portfolio and I am having a hard time coming up with a concept that I am happy with. One thing that I know is that I would like a lot of it to be based around typefaces and text. I would like our images and graphics to speak for themselves, and have the text just be there to support it.
But if you have ever worked with fonts and web design, you know that you do not have a lot of options. You basically have the font families and standard fonts. If you use a unique font, you have to hope that your target audience has that same font installed on their computers otherwise they will not see it. If you do not understand what I am talking about, think about it this way:
When you read this website, you notice that there is one main font for the content of the website, in bold and italics, but it is still the same font. You will also notice that anywhere you see a font that is “unique” that it is actually not text, but an image. This is basically what most designers do when they want some type of fun header or a graphical style font for a project. Using an image is fine if you just need it for a header, but it is not ideal. The first reason it is not the best option is because the text in images is not indexable (is that a word?) by search engines. Headers generally have important key words about the following text, so this can be detrimental to your search engine optimization. Now, you can use “alt” tags in the images, and if you do not know what I am talking about you can read about those here:(link). But “alt” tags are not held as high in search engines as actual headers.
So what do you do?
Before I found this, NOT MUCH! I had looked into Cascading Font Sheets, which would basically tell the browser a list of fonts to look for.. So if you were to browse to my website and I wanted Myriad Pro to be my font of choice for all of my content, I would first use Myriad as the font. The browser would look for that font, and if it did not find it, it would look for the second option, then the third, and so on. You can basically give as many options as you want, but again – this is not ideal. I mean, fonts are important. They tell a LOT about your content, your design, and your business. You choose a font for many reason, but to choose a first, second and third choice, you are just setting youself up for a lot of headache. You basically design for your first choice and hope that all the others look as good or close.. And if you are looking at using a REALLY unique font, well, then you are SOL because the chances of someone having it are slim to none.. and your second choices will not look anything like your first choice.
So now.. lets talk about this CUFON. I wish I knew more about it, but from what I can tell, it really is an amazing tool! You can go here to read about it:
CUFON USAGE
From what I understand, you upload your font of choice to their generator. This generator takes the information in the font file and turns it into a javascript file. It basically tells the letters how to behave, creating a new font. It then gives you a new javascript file that was created from your font file. You call this in the head of your document as if you would any javascript file. Then, in the head of the document, you tell the document where you use this font. So you can use it only in the headers by telling it to use it in <h1> or only in the paragraphs using <p> So this way, as you design your website, whenever you use the <h1> or <p> tag, you will see your newly created font!
The install and usage seems VERY VERY easy. I mean, this seems almost too good to be true.
I do not have much more to tell you about this, as I have no yet used it. I was so excited when I found it that I just had to run here and write about it. If you have ever used this, or have this working on your website, I would love to see it. Please post a comment with a link, or tell me your thoughts on fonts in websites.
I will post back when I get my design website up and running AND working with my favorite font!
Want to know who is offering this awesome content? Here it is! Someone who is relatively new to web design. I am new enough to still remember how absolutely frustrating it was to try and get anything done in this field, but have also been around long enough to be able to help those that are where I was a year ago.
Aside from web design, I run the office of my dad's engineering business, and do book keeping by trade.
I love my pets.. All 6 cats, 1 peg legged dogs, and 1 hedgehog. LOVE THEM!!
Oh yea, and my husband. He lets me chase my dreams and I let him do the same. We are happy people because of it. Read more from this author
