I don’t think we should be afraid of easier and more powerful web tools for fear of novices ruining it.

I should have mentioned Cufon in the article. It’s a step up – performance and usability wise – from sIFR, but not a big one in my opinion. We had to remove Cufon in favor of sIFR on a high traffic website recently, since it was extremely wonky with special formatting like link underlines. I dislike it because it takes some very simple HTML code and – upon rendering – generates hugely convoluted sets of tags (I think it’s SVG based, isn’t it?).

And again, while that might be “ok” for headings and limited content boxes, I think you’d agree it just isn’t a viable solution as the site’s “primary” font face.

That aside, I have been liking the more limited Cufon solution, where you convert a font into a string of javascript coordinates. No licensing problems, as you aren’t actually distributing the font anymore, but its shapes as vectors to be drawn by the browser. It’s quick to load and cache, and since it is hosted with the rest of the website, there is no subscription fees. Plus, it puts more control of the font into the hands of the designer.

The one drawback I have found is that the type is no longer cut-and-paste-able. In this world of conscious copyrighting, though, for some people that may be a benefit.

I have herd of typekit, and look forward to checking it out…

I love that they have a free account to try first…

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Thanks and Regards

Noel for Nopun.com
a graphic design studio