
Free High-Quality Fonts - smashing_mag
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/12/17/25-new-free-high-quality-fonts-typography/
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tptacek
This title got pruned back too far; put the word "Free" back into it.

HN pro typosetters: some expert critiques of these faces --- particularly the
ones that aren't just offering a teaser weight, and aren't display faces more
appropriate to deviantART than a magazine --- would be awesome. Are free
typefaces improving, starting to break out of the foundry system?

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thristian
Of the fonts listed, the ones most interesting to me are:

\- Lato: Complete font families are hard to come by, especially ones under an
open licence, with reasonably complete character sets and the necessary
kerning adjustments. This one looks pretty great.

\- Crimson Text: Looks pretty promising, and has a lot of very useful features
on the roadmap, but as the page says, "Crimson Text is under heavy
development, and the spacing/kerning is abysmal. If you use it in public these
days, you'll likely embarass yourself." I'll be keeping an eye on it, but
sticking with Linux Libertine or Heuristica for the moment.

\- Neuton Regular: Friendly and with a bit of personality, it's a shame
there's only one weight available, but it looks pretty solid for body text.

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sp332
I thought Phoenica looked familiar - turns out it's pretty similar to the font
Canonical commissioned for Ubuntu. I think I like Ubuntu's better, actually.
And of course it's free :-) <http://font.ubuntu.com/>

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pdelgallego
A question a little bit off topic.

I am a developer, but I have been trying to push my boundaries. I am using a
lot the @font-face css rule, but I noticed that most of the websites keep
using image replacement for text. Why is that? Is bad to use the @font-face
rule?

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eps
Rendering differences is _the_ reasons. To get the site to look consistent
across all major browsers and platforms Cufon is the only practical option at
the moment.

The licensing issues is a problem of its own even with image replacement...
_even_ if it's a server-side image replacement like Flir. Many foundries are
still scared sh#tless of the Internet and are overly protective of their work.
Some are not, for example - surprise - Adobe and Dalton Maag. For other
fondries however it's a business decision. For example, one cannot use any of
HF&J fonts such as Gotham and Archer online in any form or fashion. They are
building their own font service. Anytime you see a site sporting Gotham under
Cufon, it's an explicit license violation.

So in short - if you are considering using a font with an image replacement,
check the license. If it is not _explicitly_ permitted, then in all likelihood
it is disallowed. If still set on using this font, email foundry and ask.

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tptacek
You mean I can't _automatically embed_ HFJ faces, right? If I painstakingly
Photoshop my hedlines, I can use Archer for that, right?

Also, when implying that font-face has dealbreaking rendering quality issues,
are you referring to their performance for setting body copy, or do you think
it flat out doesn't work for display type either?

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nborgo
This flowchart might clear up the rendering differences:
<http://typophile.com/node/70216>

It's not so much that rendering a whole bunch of text takes a while (though it
might, but it probably has more to do with the time it takes to download the
font), but more that the letters look different depending on who looks at it.

After that, it's up to the designer to decide whether or not the difference is
acceptable. I'd say it works out fine in pretty much all cases. Your site
doesn't have to look the same in all browsers, people.

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user24
what, just in case I happen to be looking for one?

