02 Mar, 2009
Fonts and Typography Issues on a Web Page – SIFR, JQuery to the answer
Posted by: Mr Otter In: Web Design| javascript
One of the big problems faced when designing a web page is typography. As designers we need to leverage on a whole multitude of fonts (sometimes proprietary) to bring out certain design concepts. However, these fonts are generally not available on the public viewers’ computer. As such, this will result in it being rendered in the standard Times New Roman character.
The old way of solving such issues is to replace such elements with images. However, the image based solution has several disadvantages:
- Images sucks in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
- Changes to the text in the image has to be done up in a graphics editing software like photoshop before being uploaded to the server again
- Images are heavy. They consume excessive bandwidth
So the industry came together and worked out solutions. Based on some quick research, there seems to be 2 really neat solutions:
- Scalable Inman Flash Replacement (SIFR)
- JQuery
- SIFR basically leverages on javascript and flash. It basically replaces the necessary text elements with a flash movie clip and renders out the text within the flash movie clip. A detailed explanation of its workings can be found at:
http://www.mikeindustries.com/blog/sifr/
- JQuery uses javascript which will call a PHP script to actually generate the image on the fly! Information can be found at:
http://plugins.jquery.com/project/pir
