Comments on: Font Replacement Comparison

By: Ash

Ash — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 01:00:58 +0000

I’m a big fan of Cufon! SiFr is just too slow and the others don’t seem to include Latin characters and accents…

With Cufon. You don’t store the font on the server. You can also embed all the characters you need to use when you compile it…. It creates a javascript file of the font outline – clever. No redistribution there. It’s all compiled as Javascript… You ought to have a legit license for the font you are using tho ;)

In terms of Licensing, you should pay for every font you use ideally. Not that many people realise this.

Generally, foundries don’t check up on you – but they may, if you get to be high profile… So maybe it’s worth checking that your clients have correctly licensed the fonts they want to use!

By: Matt Hill

Matt Hill — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:34:40 +0000

I’m really not a fan of sIFR, I found it way too complex.

I’ve become increasingly concerned about *all* these embedding solutions form a licencing perspective. I don’t think it’s reasonable for us as developers and designers to put fonts on our servers that others can download for free.

Sure, it goes without saying that no-one should be using SIFR or Cufon to embed fonts that don’t have a redistribute licence. But I’ve seen hundreds of sites using unlicensed fonts and that’s just not on.

Glad you mentioned Typekit, it’s been getting a lot of good press over the last few months. It’s the way to go to keep all parties happy.

By: Ash

Ash — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 09:47:00 +0000

Extremely useful post, this. As a user of Sifr, it’s nice to be able to offer an alternative that doesn’t use Flash, if only to use as a backup if the user doesn’t have the Flash player installed….

By: Steve

Steve — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 10:06:32 +0000

Thanks Al, is this the jQuery alternative you're referring to? We're fans of jQuery, so we'll be sure to check it out!

By: Al Stevens

Al Stevens — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 09:59:55 +0000

Hi there, And thanks for the post. Very useful. As a long time user of sifr I have recently switched to a jquery alternative, which is based on sifr but the setup is slightly different. I recommend you check it out as it is arguably less fiddly to set up. Al

By: Joshua van der Broek

Joshua van der Broek — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:30:40 +0000

It’s great to see developers getting excited about typography. When a visual design is very minimal the typography set down in the guidelines becomes one of the few visual assets – using this is essential.