By Andrew Follett
October 20th, 2010
Smashing Magazine
In the mid-80s the desktop publishing revolution began with the introduction of the Mac Plus, Aldus PageMaker and the Apple LaserWriter printer. It took quite a few years for these tools to make an impact on the design and publishing world, but once they did, there was no looking back.
In 2010 we see a similar revolution starting to take shape with web fonts. Even though @font-face was introduced in the CSS2 spec in 1998, it wasn’t until this past year that all in-use web browsers added support for it. This year we’re seeing a wave of web font services being marketed, and this could have a profound impact on web typography.
Web font services, like Typekit and now the Google Font API, have captured a lot of attention. But in the past 3 months there’s been an explosion of new services; services like Fonts Live, Fontdeck, Webtype and others with conjugated names involving “Font” or “Type”.
While all of these services are unique, they each provide a tool for web designers and developers to legally display professional fonts on their website. The guide below compares 10 of these services, breaking down the pros and cons of each. We hope this comparison will help you make a more informed decision on which service to use when you venture into the ever-growing, sometimes confusing, world of web fonts.
