Arial, Verdana, Trebuchet, Georgia, anyone in the web world knows what these are, your basic "web safe" fonts. For years and years now web designers have been limited in the variety of fonts available for use in fear of incompatibility with some visitors computers. The same dozen or so fonts have been the norm for so very long, are you not tired of the same old same old? Google in all its glory has now introduced something for our typographic woes, Google web fonts. In short Google web fonts allows a designer, or anyone else for that matter, pick and choose from over 200 free open-source fonts ranging from the bizarre to modern simplicity. These fonts can be viewed on any computer regardless of operating system, browser, or installed fonts. It makes for a more interesting web experience for certain.
By now any user on the web has seen the small variety of fonts that are capable of being seen by most every user. The list can be seen here if you care to look, im sure you will recognize a few of the listed fonts or "web safe" fonts. The problem with only having a few fonts at your disposal when designing a website is sometimes the few options you have just dont fit correctly with the theme of your website. At times you want to be expressive with the text, to portray a certain amount of character in the type and for everyone to be able to experience it. Up until recently this was only a dream, or something you would have to sacrifice quality for by creating a page of text made of solely of images which as we all know is search engine suicide. Now thanks to Google we can see things like:
this right here (Bowlby One)
Quite the difference from your normal type seen on the net!
Google also makes this incredibly simple. By going to the Google web fonts page you get a nice view of all the fonts available to you, each in written out and customizable to vary size, what is written, and what is most popular within the list. You add your favorites to your collection where you can view details, play with sizing, download the fonts to be used locally on your computer, and a variety of other ways to incorporate the new fonts into your chosen website, blog, or whichever application you see fit. Pretty simple, and in the most recent UI update Google has really pushed usability forward.
Now to be fair Google is not the first in the custom web font game. Places like Typekit and Fontdeck have been offering specialty fonts for websites for some time now, the catch is that most come at a price and are not quite as user friendly as the Google web fonts UI (in this bloggers opinion that is). On the other hand these websites offer some of the most famous and widely renown fonts that have been used for decades by graphic designer, so it is hard to compete with that. Googles fonts are primarily open-source fonts that a bit newer to the design landscape, not to say they are any less usable by any means. It is just a matter of taste.
So what are you waiting for? The world of web typography beckons for your creative prose, go out there and try this out for yourself!
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