Introducing Cloud Typography Webfonts by H&FJ • Hacker News Board

Re: Introducing Cloud Typography Webfonts by H&FJ

#21

Post by Historiopode » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 7:23 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #16

Fauntleroy wrote: post #11

Yet again I'll have to use someone's arbitrary font-serving service instead of using @font-face and hosting the fonts myself. I'd really prefer to just purchase the font, but this is surely more profitable. Also, check out this section for a laugh: http://www.typography.com/cloud/how-it-works/#the-delivery-a... . "It constructs an application capable of recognizing requests from different browsers." Apparently a few…

None of the major foundries are OK with you embedding fonts into web pages by publishing their fonts as resources on the web, there to be downloaded by anyone else who wants to compose documents with those fonts.

It seems to me that downloading a subset of a typeface from a webpage would be less practical than downloading an entire collection from a torrent.

Concerning the service itself: according to their product page, H&FJ requires you to include a remote stylesheet rather than javascript. I would say this is the "minimum viable evil" if you are striving to centralize distribution of your webfonts; while annoying, there are some advantages for the user (in this case, free Akamai).

Edit: I just checked a couple of torrent search engines and, apparently, there are not many up-to-date torrents for H&FJ typefaces. In hindsight, I suppose that the population of individuals who are likely to share files illegally and that of professional/dedicated designers have very little overlap.

Re: Introducing Cloud Typography Webfonts by H&FJ

#22

Post by tptacek » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 7:27 PM UTC

Historiopode wrote: post #21

tptacek wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of the major foundries are OK with you embedding fonts into web pages by publishing their fonts as resources on the web, there to be downloaded by anyone else who wants to compose documents with those fonts.

It seems to me that downloading a subset of a typeface from a webpage would be less practical than downloading an entire collection from a torrent. Concerning the service itself: according to their product page, H&FJ requires you to include a remote stylesheet rather than javascript. I would say this is the "minimum viable evil" if you are striving to centralize distribution of your webfonts; while annoying, there ar…

The people who download fonts from torrents know what they're doing. If it was trivial to copy fonts off of web pages, people would routinely violate H+FJ's license without even realizing it; H+FJ would be in the unpleasant position of having to police the Internet and educating all those people who'd be surprised to hear that the one piece of markup / technology they can't crib from another site is the font, but only if it's an H+FJ font, and...

Re: Introducing Cloud Typography Webfonts by H&FJ

#23

Post by IzzyMurad » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 8:30 PM UTC

There are just too many excellent free alternatives to justify such subscription.

Re: Introducing Cloud Typography Webfonts by H&FJ

#24

Post by thufry » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 8:37 PM UTC

bbrunner wrote: post #5

What makes this different from typekit? It's quite a bit more expensive ($99 for 250,000 pageviews on cloud.typography vs $49 for 500,000 on typekit) and I'm wondering what extras it provides.

They're not trying to sell this to startups, they're trying to sell this to the Goldman Sachs website. These type of clients: 1) don't want the same fonts as everyone else, 2) want the high-quality typefaces of H&FJ, and 3) don't give a hoot what it costs.

Re: Introducing Cloud Typography Webfonts by H&FJ

#25

Post by larrywright » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 8:41 PM UTC

IzzyMurad wrote: post #23

There are just too many excellent free alternatives to justify such subscription.

There really aren't. H&FJ make some of the best typefaces out there.

Re: Introducing Cloud Typography Webfonts by H&FJ

#26

Post by grey-area » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 8:41 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #16

Fauntleroy wrote: post #11

Yet again I'll have to use someone's arbitrary font-serving service instead of using @font-face and hosting the fonts myself. I'd really prefer to just purchase the font, but this is surely more profitable. Also, check out this section for a laugh: http://www.typography.com/cloud/how-it-works/#the-delivery-a... . "It constructs an application capable of recognizing requests from different browsers." Apparently a few…

None of the major foundries are OK with you embedding fonts into web pages by publishing their fonts as resources on the web, there to be downloaded by anyone else who wants to compose documents with those fonts.

FontShop do supply 13000 fonts for upload to servers, among them FF meta, FF Din etc, so some quite well-known and well-used fonts:

http://www.fontshop.com/fonts/webfonts/

I suspect other foundries will follow them eventually, because competition from things like Google Web fonts and younger typographers is going to make it very difficult to justify refusing to allow use on the web without a subscription and reliance on a third-party server.

Re: Introducing Cloud Typography Webfonts by H&FJ

#27

Post by tptacek » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 8:41 PM UTC

IzzyMurad wrote: post #23

There are just too many excellent free alternatives to justify such subscription.

Good. That's the right way to think about it. If free fonts are an option for your project, it's dumb to pay money for access to high-end designer fonts.

Re: Introducing Cloud Typography Webfonts by H&FJ

#28

Post by muglug » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 8:48 PM UTC

neilk wrote: post #19

bbrunner wrote: post #5

What makes this different from typekit? It's quite a bit more expensive ($99 for 250,000 pageviews on cloud.typography vs $49 for 500,000 on typekit) and I'm wondering what extras it provides.

First of all - a lot of the fonts available on Typekit - actually, anywhere, are, ahem, inspired by H&FJ. This is the first offering that matches the H&FJ to quality. For instance, my favorite font at the moment is Ideal Sans. The concept here is to infuse a sans serif with an almost handlettered quality. There are no straight lines. Consequently it's hard to make it look good for the screen, period, let alone at sma…

Maybe, but the most popular (Proxima Nova) has roots that predate its doppelganger Gotham (H&FJ's most popular typeface) by six years: http://www.marksimonson.com/notebook/view/first-public-use-o...

Nevertheless, its recent popularity is due to its status as best-legal-webfont-alternative to Gotham - at least, until today.

Re: Introducing Cloud Typography Webfonts by H&FJ

#29

Post by jwarren » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 9:03 PM UTC

I love H&FJ fonts, but they're very vague about which typefaces you get access to. If I knew what they were, I'd be highly likely to sign up.

Re: Introducing Cloud Typography Webfonts by H&FJ

#30

Post by mkehrt » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 9:14 PM UTC

Historiopode wrote: post #21

tptacek wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of the major foundries are OK with you embedding fonts into web pages by publishing their fonts as resources on the web, there to be downloaded by anyone else who wants to compose documents with those fonts.

It seems to me that downloading a subset of a typeface from a webpage would be less practical than downloading an entire collection from a torrent. Concerning the service itself: according to their product page, H&FJ requires you to include a remote stylesheet rather than javascript. I would say this is the "minimum viable evil" if you are striving to centralize distribution of your webfonts; while annoying, there ar…

I may or may not have had no trouble whatsoever pirating an enormous variety of fonts off a website I found with a quick google search. Maybe torrents just aren't where they are?