Extensis developing product to support Web fonts
Those of you also undertaking Web design might be interested to learn that by leveraging its font server technology, Extensis has begun testing a new cloud-based Web font service that enables Web designers to incorporate custom fonts into websites.
Font use on the Web has been fairly limited to the standard fonts installed on readers' machines. For typographic flexibility, designers most often have resorted to static text images in their designs. Due to recent technology improvements, Web browsers now support the use of custom fonts on websites (via @font-face tags). The challenge is that different browsers support different Web font formats, and font vendor licenses generally do not allow users to simply put fonts loose on a Web server, because of concerns about piracy. This is where Extensis comes in.
Simply put, a designer chooses a preferred typeface from the Extensis service, which then generates the necessary CSS to be placed into the Web code. Any visitor to the website is
instantaneously 'delivered' the chosen fonts - in the correct format for their browser, from a more secure Extensis server. This means:?
. the parallel branding of websites with traditional marketing vehicles is possible
. it improves search engine optimization (SEO) by making all text searchable
. it makes websites easier to edit
. designers don't have to deal with font licensing issues
www.extensis.com
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