I just finished reading back over the last chapter of Fluid Web Typography, and—for the first time in my writing career—I didn’t mind. Normally, by the end of a book project I’m so sick of the topic that I can barley bring myself to read one more word that I’ve written. I hear this from most of my author friends as well, but re-reading Fluid Web Typography, I was really excited about what I had written, also knowing that this is just the beginning. I have put as much as I could into this book about the current state of Web typography, but there is so much more to explore as the new Typography technologies are established and develop.

Up until the last week before I finished writing, circumstances on the ground were dramatically shifting under my feet as a I wrote. The day I turned in chapter 3 “Fonts & Typefaces”, which included 3 pages on how to use WEFT to convert TTF fonts to EOT, a new service was launched called Font Squirrel, which allows you to upload any font file and convert it not only to EOT, but SVG as well. Then a few days later, Mozilla announces support for the WOFF format in the next release of Firefox, which had only just been announced as a draft. Only days later Font Squirrel added WOFF conversion, giving us a round-trip solution for a standard that wasn’t even being discussed when I started this book. So, when I got chapter 3 back I had to rip-out huge sections , write new ones, and re-write others.

For this book, it’s all over now but the printing, and it will be off to the printers next week and in finer book stores everywhere by early December.

To everyone who has emailed me, and I haven’t gotten back to you, I apologize. The next few weeks will be spent with my family and catching up on many other tasks that I let slide while concentrating on Fluid Web Typography. If you haven’t heard from me in the next few weeks, feel free to email me again with any questions, comments, or criticism.

Also, to celebrate finishing the book, I’m going to be giving away several copies of my last book, Speaking In Styles. Keep an eye on my Twitter feed for an announcement in the next few days.

Tags: CSS, Typography by jason
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South by South West Interactive (SXSWi) is looking for a few good speakers, and I’m hoping to be amongst the chosen again this year. I have two sessions up for consideration, and although I can only present one of them, I’m asking very, very, VERY nicely to consider voting for both of them so that I have the best chance of going to Austin.

Thanks for your help!

Fluid Web Typography: Many Types, Many Faces

Are you tired of using the same old fonts in your Web designs? The type you use can say as much to your audience as the actual words on the page, but until now, Web designers have had an extremely limited palette of fonts from which to choose—essentially, Arial (yawn), Times (yawn), and Georgia (yawwwwwn). Design is about overcoming the limitations of a medium, and Web design is no different. In this session, Jason will show you how to use fluid typography, browser-safe fonts, and type over images to create robust scalable designs to achieve great typography without resorting to typing in images or Adobe Flash. You’ll also learn how to use CSS to download any font you want to use in your Web designs, and to use downloadable fonts, despite the limitations of some browsers.

Vote for It!

The Trusted Filter: Finding Your Cronkites Online

There is just too much information in the universe—too much to know—for one person to experience even a small fraction of it it all first hand. We have always turned to the people around us to help sift through and synthesize data (turning information into knowledge) and to help us learn what’s going on (turn knowledge into understanding). We have always relied on our trusted filters.

However, at every major shift in the way technology is used to transmit information, we see a parallel shift, not only who our trusted filters are, but also the very nature of what it means to be a trusted filter. With the rise of the Internet, and the shift away from the one-to-many paradigm of trusted filters to a many-to-many paradigm, some alarmists are sounding the fall of civilization as we know it. However, we must view the period we are in now as one of transition—a transition that may last several decades—and consider it against the background of other significant historical shifts in culture and technology. Doing so, you’ll realize that the future of communication, knowledge, and understanding our children will know will be nothing like what we know now.

The Trusted Filter examines where the shifts in culture and technology we are currently experiencing have developed from, the implications they have on how we gather and process information, and where these changes may be leading us. Neither reactionary nor Pollyanna, The Trusted Filter will acknowledge the downsides of the “New” media, but will equally acknowledge that the devaluation of “Traditional” media is not a bad thing.

Vote For It!

Tags: Conferences, Future, Typography by jason
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I’m underway writing my next book, Fluid Web Typography: A Guide , which will be out this fall. As with Speaking in Styles: The Fundamentals of CSS for Web Designers , I’ll be doing the layout myself. I got some input on the cover, but it’s not completely mine this time.

I’ve been collecting a lot of Web sites to use in the new book to show off the best in Web typography, but I’m looking for more. If you have a site you are particularly proud of, or can suggest one, take a look at my criteria below, and then add a comment after this article with a link to the site or (if you want to keep it private) use my contact form to send me the link.

What I’m looking for:

1. Good use of typography in an attractive Web design (obviously). This includes typefaces, contrast, scale, motion, rhythm, and composition.
2. Use of fonts other than the core Web fonts. Anyone using fonts from the Web-safe fonts list or using @font-face to download fonts would be best.
3. No or limited use of type in images. I want to concentrate on typography set using text in HTML.
4. No or limited use of Flash for typography. Some Flash for videos is OK, but I’m not looking for typography in Flash
5. Recent. The newer the better.

The sites I get that fit my criteria will be considered for use in Fluid Web Typography and receive a copy of the book when it comes out.

Tags: CSS, Typography, Web Design, Writing by jason
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A little present to brighten up your dull Monday morning. I’ve created a new desktop wall paper listing the 62 cross-OS Web safe fonts, based on my list of Web-safe fonts. These are the fonts that are most likely to be on both Mac and Windows computers, making them prime candidates for incorporating into your Web designs. And you can now have them all at your fingertips.

To use, just find the font(s) that best suites your needs, add them to your font family list in your CSS:

font-family: "Franklin Gothic Book", helvetica, arial, sans-serif;

and sit back and watch the typographic yumminess. if the person viewing your site has that font installed (which is likely but not guaranteed) their browser will use it. Otherwise, the design falls back to the other fonts in the list.

I’ve created the desktop for a variety of monitor resolution, so choose the one that best fits yours:

• SiS-Desktop_1280×800
• SiS-Desktop_1280×1024
• SiS-Desktop_1400×1050
• SiS-Desktop_1440×900
• SiS-Desktop_1600×1200
• SiS-Desktop_1680×1050
• SiS-Desktop_2048×1536

If you find the list useful, please make sure and spread the word.

Tags: CSS, Typography, Web Design, Web Development by jason
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Sign up for the online CSS Summit.

My friends Chris Schmitt and Ari Stiles have been working hard to set up what looks to be a really cool online learning event on July 18th—the CSS Summit. Besides myself, the CSS Summit will have some amazing speakers like Molly Holzschlag, Stephanie Sullivan, Kimberly Blessing, Dave McFarland, Zoe Gillenwater and Christopher Schmitt.

The topics being talked about include:

• Future CSS and Markup
• Troubleshooting IE6
• CSS3
• Coding Layouts
• Web Typography (that one’s mine)
• Web Form Elements
• Flexible Layouts

The CSS Summit will take place online Saturday, July 18 from 9 a.m. to 5p.m ET. Tickets are $139 for a single user or $439 for a meeting rum, but you can get $25 off is you use my discount code (CSSJASONCT).

Register now!

Tags: CSS, Conferences, Typography, Web Design by jason
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