July 16, 2001

11:03 AM

Lido STF is a freeware serif font of sufficient quality to be used instead of Times. Are there any other worthy freeware alternatives to the main system fonts? (via Lines and Splines)
posted by ecvgi (19 comments total)

a question for anyone who knows... is it possible to specify a font on a webpage via css that would be stored on the web server? in other words, so that the font need not be preinstalled.
posted by moz at 11:39 AM on July 16, 2001

everyone knows about kottke's silkscreen.

did you know about bitmap ?

and, while it's not free, gillespie's mini7 is still a pretty good deal at $15.
posted by rebeccablood at 11:45 AM on July 16, 2001

here are american sign language fonts! and cherokee!

via the yamada language center archive of non-english fonts.
posted by rebeccablood at 11:51 AM on July 16, 2001

Embeddable fonts are still not a reality, moz. They are not widely supported and the methods for embedding them boil down to a Microsoft vs. Other utility. I think they'd still be nifty for a corporate intranet or something where the audience is fairly homogenous.
posted by amanda at 12:11 PM on July 16, 2001

SVG has support for embeddable fonts. But I don't know if it'll catch on and be widely supported.
posted by sonofsamiam at 12:16 PM on July 16, 2001

I think they'd still be nifty for a corporate intranet or something where the audience is fairly homogenous.

Hmmm? Seems to me that on a corporate intranet, the solution would be just to make sure the appropriate fonts were simply installed on every machine, instead of having all that font data take up bandwidth with each page request, no? If it's really important that all of your page headings be in 24-point Velveetica Bold Extended, it seems to me that would be the easiest fix ....

Embedded fonts generally annoy me. They can make otherwise excellent sites take longer to download, and often for nothing -- I mean, I already have Comics Sans, and even if I didn't, is it that big a deal?
posted by webmutant at 12:50 PM on July 16, 2001

I've always been fond of Georgia, which kicks Times into the dust and spits on it. It's beautiful when it's antialiased.
posted by darukaru at 12:59 PM on July 16, 2001

webmutant:

that's a good point — what if you already have the font? still, it's kind of frustrating that you have such a small subset of fonts to work with (sticking only to commonly available ones).
posted by moz at 1:03 PM on July 16, 2001

the closest you can come with css or font tags would be to list a whole lot of alternatives that people might have installed. but then again, most of those fonts aren't optimized for onscreen display and will probably look shitty in a browser. Verdana is the king of all display fonts, IMO. It looks great at small sizes and just as good at a larger scale.

i'm too lazy to go look in the source code and see what mathowie uses for the font on the dates for metafilter, but it looks great! I think the important thing to remember is that type is very different on the web and display fonts will offer the best readability until everyone is running quartz or some similar display technology. even then, i don't think I'd want to read page after page of small serif type on a monitor.

I'm sure I've strayed pretty far from the topic at hand, but you'll have to deal with it ;)
posted by chrisege at 1:25 PM on July 16, 2001

(chris: the dates use the font "Georgia.")
posted by moz at 1:31 PM on July 16, 2001

I want a font for the Deseret alphabet!

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/deseret.htm

"The Deseret Alphabet was devised as an alternative to the Latin alphabet for writing the English language. It was developed during the 1850s at the University of Deseret, now the University of Utah, and was promoted by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the "Mormon" or LDS Church"
Fun!
posted by Mihai at 1:53 PM on July 16, 2001

I've always liked JMK's fonts for use on high-res X terminals with approximately 37 xterms open at a time.
posted by jammer at 2:03 PM on July 16, 2001

ProFont is my monospaced font of choice. For all other purposes, Verdana.
posted by jjg at 2:30 PM on July 16, 2001

I 'm a big fan of Andale Mono as a monospaced font.
posted by ry at 3:02 PM on July 16, 2001

JOHN HATES TIMES NEW ROMAN.
posted by jpoulos at 3:24 PM on July 16, 2001

Me too. Besides the fact that I'm sick of it, it looks like shit at text sizes on the screen.

Hey, this Lido font might be nice, but it seems to be corrupted (the Mac version).
posted by rodii at 4:10 PM on July 16, 2001

Unfortunately, Comic Sans instantly lowers your Charisma by 2d8. It's a harsh rule, Taylor, but it's there for a reason.
posted by jga at 5:20 PM on July 16, 2001

i've been rocking georgia like nobody's business ever since i read about it.... never was a big fan of those mini fonts rebecca suggested (though their other work, i usually like.). just something about small type annoys me, even though designers are supposed to be "used to it." plus, opera hasn't quite perfected their zoom function, so i'd prefer not having to move closer to my monitor so i can read what's up there.
posted by lotsofno at 5:28 PM on July 16, 2001

Thank you, thank you, thank you!
posted by Jongo at 5:18 AM on July 17, 2001