Typekit, the web service that helps designers use elaborate typefaces in their page designs, is celebrating its one year anniversary with a big announcement: the company has added 16 of Adobe's popular font families to Typekit's ever-growing stable of options.
With the addition of Adobe's fonts to TypeKit's already large library, designers now have access to popular workhorse fonts like Adobe Garamond, News Gothic, Myriad and Minion, as well as slightly funkier options like Rosewood or Trajan, the "movie font." These typefaces are heavily used in the print publishing world.
The new Adobe fonts are the original cuts of the typefaces, not reproductions or downgraded web versions of the designs. This means it's now possible to use them just like you would in print work with the same rendering accuracy and technical detail you'd see on paper. Monday's development should have a positive impact on the use of fancier fonts on the websites of old-school institutions and larger corporations – companies that have been using Adobe products to build their print materials for years. Now that they have the same level of control over details like kerning pairs and line height on the web, they'll have an easier time making the jump.
Adobe is a little late to the party – the company is one of the last major font foundries to partner with Typekit – but Typekit President and co-founder Bryan Mason tells Webmonkey that the reason for the delay is a heavy attention to detail.
"Adobe has been working on the hinting and screen rendering of these (and others to follow) for months," says Mason, "[that] means a character-by-character, weight-by-weight review of each font family."
Typekit is like a YouTube for fonts. The service lets web developers pick a font from its library, pay a licensing fee to the font creator (though some fonts are free), then use that font across their website. Unlike many fancy type solutions on the web, TypeKit isn't using any sort of image replacement for rendering fonts, just the standard CSS @font-face declaration with a minimal amount of JavaScript to simplify the process and account for various browser versions. The service is one of the easiest ways for web designers to use creative fonts without sacrificing web standards or violating font licenses – most of the time, it's just a matter of copying and pasting some code snippets. There are also options specifically designed for easy integration with popular publishing platforms like WordPress. The company also released an API last month, allowing third parties to integrate Typekit font selection into their apps.
If you'd like to try the new fonts on your site, head over to Typekit and log in to your account. The fonts are available for all paid Typekit accounts. If you're using the limited, free option, you'll have to settle for Adobe Garamond, the only family that Typekit is giving away.
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