Appendix A. Web Font Services

This list describes a number of vendors and services, with some notes on their use. All have some sort of free account to start with, so the barrier to entry is pretty low to get started and try it out. It’s worth noting that most services can be used on multiple domains with a single monthly subscription, so agencies can maintain multiple accounts in order to find the best combinations of available fonts and pricing levels for just about any size project.

Fontdeck.com

Fontdeck was one of the first services to launch, having been conceived by Jon Tan and Richard Rutter in 2009. It has a really elegant interface, a comprehensive tagging system for search, flexible pricing, and the best implementation of OpenType feature support I’ve found thus far. Fontdeck uses its tags to surface typefaces that have OpenType features enabled and shows you which OpenType features are supported on each typeface detail page. Very handy. Fontdeck cofounder Rich Rutter’s commitment to better typography on the Web is inspiring, and it’s clear that there will be more features to come from the service.

Fonts.com

Also one of the early launches, Fonts.com from Monotype was one of the most prolific of the services with regard to the number of fonts available: launching with about 7,500 and quickly growing to more than 30,000. It is still one of the only services to provide both JavaScript and CSS methods of embedding, and it has always been incredibly supportive of my own ...

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