*** From the Archives ***
This article is from July 5, 2013, and is no longer current.
Famous Type Designers Debut Supercharged Webfonts
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Hoefler & Frere-Jones, also known as H&FJ, are targeting type-savvy designers with a new webfont offering, Cloud.typography. All H&FJ typefaces have been retooled so that they look as good onscreen as they do on that very different medium, paper.
H&FJ calls these reimagined fonts “ScreenSmart”. The company says the changes were necessary because fonts in smaller sizes that look good when output at high resolutions fail when rendered onscreen, where the available pixels can be only a tiny fraction of the original printed dots.
ScreenSmart fonts, on the other hand, take advantage of pixels’ natural properties instead of fighting them.
The Costs
If the sites on which you’ll deploy Cloud.typography will receive fewer than 250,000 cumulative pageviews per month, you can go with the cheapest subscription at $99 per year. (Yes, cumulative—you can share the service across multiple domains.) The next step up accommodates one million pageviews per month and costs $149 per year. The final Cloud.typography level is for sites that receive 2 million pageviews per month, and it costs $299 per year.
Every level comes with free webfont versions of H&FJ fonts you’ve already bought, plus five additional free webfont packages. And once you subscribe, the H&FJ typefaces you purchase will come in forms tailored for print and the web.
Compatability and Other Details
Cloud.typography is compatible with the following browsers:
- Internet Explorer 6+
- Google Chrome 6+
- Firefox 3.5+
- Safari 3.1+
- Opera 10+
- Mobile Safari for iOS 4.2+
- Browser on Android 2.2+
- Google Chrome for Android 18+
- IE Mobile for Windows Phone 8
- Blackberry OS 7+ (including PlayBook)
For much more information, including the geekier details—browser compatability, SSL serving, development bandwidth, and so on—go to https://www.typography.com/cloud/. The site is an interactive treat in itself.
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