A company or website is always in search of something unique, a unique logo, a unique colour and even a unique font. Today there is as much emphasis laid on the logo of a company as is laid on the font the company's letter head uses or the font used on the company's website. DTP (DeskTop Publishing) is what makes boring business cards and letterhead's look exciting, today the largest applications of fonts is undoubtedly in the DTP industry, an increasingly large number of companies are looking for a custom font, or a font that is essentially unique from others.
In fact just like calligraphy, today custom fonts and font repositories are becoming a fast evolving and profitable enterprise. However there are websites on the internet that offer free download of fonts. If you represent a large corporate house, and looking for something unique or different, then you should consider getting a custom font developed, or you can look through the comprehensive font database of sites like www.
fontparade.com. More often than not there is a font that meets everyone's needs. DTP is fast evolving into an industry that caters to fonts on not just print media, but also electronic media. Most web designer's today look to use the perfect font for their website.
If you are web designer and looking for some tips on how to effectively use fonts on a website, the first thing to remember is that having an exotic or impressive font is not enough, the rarer the font chances are that the user viewing the website might not have the font you have used. It is therefore essential for you as a web designer to make sure the fonts are backward compatible, this means that you can either offer the font you are using as a download so users can install it, or you actually direct the browser to use an alternate font. More often than not the browser automatically switches over to default font if the font used by a website is not installed on the computer. As a web designer it is essential to understand the limitations of using rare and custom fonts, not all users want to go through the trouble of downloading fonts, in such cases a good option is to get a script developed that directs the browser to download the font, and all it takes is the click of a button and the font is installed on the system.
In either case to ensure your site is presented the way you intended make sure you cater to font compatibility issues. If you are DTP firm then the fonts you use must make sense on paper too; as many DTP firms will tell you, not everything that looks good on screen comes out well on paper. It is therefore essential to test out the font you are using on paper and other printable media, to determine the best medium for printing the font. No matter what the area of application is, if you are using fonts make sure they are easily accessible and viewable by all people.
Andreas Grimm is the author of this article on download free font. Find more information about handwriting font here.
