Building our font library
We’ve been testing Typekit over the last few weeks with a small group of foundries, type designers, and web designers. The results have been incredibly valuable, helping us learn more about how fonts perform in browsers as well as a host of other issues. We are very grateful to these folks for being so generous with their time and expertise. And a large number of these foundries have agreed to jump in with both feet, adding their work to the Typekit service from day one.
Recently, we wrapped up this pilot program and started sending out invitations. If you signed up on our home page, you can expect to see an email from us in the next couple weeks.
Every day we’re adding more fonts to all Typekit accounts. Here’s the full list of the remarkable foundries we’ve been working with, along with the fonts they’ve made available, as of today. This list will be growing as we grow. Watch for updates on our Twitter stream.
Trial Library
Fonts you can try for free:
Bigelow & Holmes: Luxi Sans, Luxi Serif
Bitstream: Vera Sans
Chank Co: Adrianna,, Extended, Demibold, Braingelt Premium, Braingelt Standard, Chippewa Falls, Kegger Collegiate, Saucy Millionaire, Shrub, Westsac
Cheapskate Fonts: Dustismo
Daniel Midgley: Daniel
Floodfonts: Hydrophilia Liquid, Moby, Moby Monospaced, Hydrophilia Iced, Bigfish
Fonthead: Good Dog, Corn Dog, Bad Dog, Good Kitty, John Doe
Google Android: Droid Serif
HVD Fonts: Steinzeit, Edding 780
Hicks Design: Hill House
Insigne Design: Newcomen, Le Havre, Terfens
Jason Kottke: Silkscreen
M+ Fonts: M+ 1c, M+ 1m
Mark Simonson Studio: Anonymous Pro
Objets Dart: Intruder Alert
Raph Levien: Inconsolata
Redhat: Liberation Serif, Liberation Sans
Rogier van Dalen: Legendum, Garogier
Typo3: Share TechMono, Share Regular
Typodermic: Neuropol Nova, Ligurino Condensed, R6D8, Report
Vic Fieger: CarbonType, Heavy Data, Know Your Product, Armalite Rifle, Edo, Helsinki, Lilac Malaria Alpha Echo, Boston Traffic
s.a.x. Software: saxMono
Personal Library
Everything from the Trial Library, plus:
Barry Schwartz: BonvenoCF, Goudy Bookletter 1911
Cathy Davies: Chemist, Chemist Rough
Chank Co: Adrianna Extende, Millesime, Professor Minty, Sister Frisky, BigSmalls Regular,
Chaloops Medium,
Chauncy Pro Regular,
Chippewa Falls,
Chunder,
Harvester,
Parkway Hotel,
Parkway Motel,
Professor Minty,
Shrub Regular,
Shrub Bold,
Sister Frisky,
Skippy Sharp,
Swister Regular,
Wordy Diva,
Zsazsa GaloreFRiTZe: Vollkorn
Fonthead: Abagail, Annabelle, AsimovSans, Battle Stations, Black Beard, Chinchilla, Click Clack, Tachyon, Catnip
Formfett: FFF Tusj
HVD Fonts: Comic Serif Pro, Embryo Open, Embryo, Rowdy, Bodedo
Insigne Design: Aviano Didone, Lourdes, Olidia, Pauline, Natalya, Natalya Alternate One, Blue Goblet, Blue Goblet Alternate One, Aviano Sans, Aviano Serif, Aviano Slab, Mahalia, Mittwoch, Youngblood
Larabie Fonts:
Coolvetica,
Duality,
Duality Sand,
Duality Steel,
Ethnocentric,
Forgotten Futurist,
Forgotten Futurist Shadow,
Fragile Bombers,
Fragile Bombers Down,
Good Times Bad Times,
Gunplay,
Gunplay Damage,
Gunplay,
Spraypaint,
Gyparody,
Junegull,
Junegull Beach,
Pupcat,
Shlop,
Shlop Shloppy,
Sofachrome,
Strenuous,
Strenuous 3D,
Strenuous Cast,
Good Times,
Dirty Bakers DozenMark Simonson Studio: Coquette, Snicker, Felt Tip Senior, Felt Tip Woman, Grad, Kandal, Metallophile Sp8, Sharktooth, Blakely
Rotodesign: Jinky
Typodermic: Madawaska,
Scheme,
Larabiefont,
Addlethorpe 1,
Barge,
Bouffant,
Bristles,
Burnaby Stencil,
Cardigan,
Catwing,
Charbroiled,
Chinese Rocks,
Conceal,
Cotton,
Dirtstorm,
Divulge,
Domyouji,
Flyswim,
Gnuolane,
Graveblade,
Gurkner Jump,
Hayate,
Headlight,
Hit,
Hoverunit,
Kelvingrove,
Meloche,
Milibus,
Mitigate,
Nagomi,
Negotiate,
Neuzon,
Octynaz,
Pakenham,
Pirulen,
Presicav,
Printf,
Reagan,
Report School,
Rexlia,
Rinse,
Salsbury,
Sewn,
Silicone
Bold,
Soap,
SuiGeneris,
Superclarendon,
Sweater School,
Synthemesc,
Tight,
Transmute,
Tussilago,
Uniwars,
Xenara,
Xenera Bold,
Zalderdash,
Zekton,
Neuropol X Light,
Fenwick Outline
Full Library
Everything from the Trial and Personal Libraries, plus:
Betatype: Apertura Condensed, Apertura, Pill Gothic 300mg, Pill Gothic 600mg, Pill Gothic 900mg
Chank Co: Liquorstore, Kegger US, Westsac, Adrianna, Matt B, Ballers Delight, Flower Power, BigSmalls Bold
Chaloops Regular,
Chaloops Bold,
Chauncy Pro Bold,
Chauncy Pro Italic,
Chauncy Pro BoldItalic,
Hilde Sharp,
Swister Light,
Swister Bold,
Swister ExtraboldFonthead: French Roast
HVD Fonts: Cowboyslang Expanded, Cowboyslang, Cowboyslang Condensed
Insigne Design: Montag, Carta Marina, Deinstag
Mark Simonson Studio: Felt Tip Roman, Proxima Nova, Changeling Neo, Mostra Nuova, Proxima Nova Condensed, Proxima Nova Extra Condensed, Refrigerator Deluxe
Outras Fontes: JanaThork-Pro, Maryam Alternate, Maryam Regular
Paragraph: Galette, Mentone
Steve Mehallo: Chandler 42 Regular, Jeanne Moderno Geometrique, Alta California, Martini at Joe’s, TewentyFourNinetyOne
TypeTogether:Skolar, Bree, Givry, Crete, Ronnia Condensed
Typodermic: Stud, Expressway, Jesaya Black, Mufferaw, Nasalization, Octin College, Octin Prison, Octin Sports, Octin Spraypaint, Octin Stencil, Octin Vintage
Underware: Bello Pro
36 Responses
Comments are closed.
I love the idea of being able to use any fonts in web design and I’m thankful for the progressive movement, but it makes me nervous that bad designers out there are going to use too many fonts on one page, or choose really bad fonts, making the design hard to even look at. At least right now people don’t have many choices and everything is either serif or sans serif and easy to read and look at although a little boring and lacking style. Can you imagine if bad designers out there displayed their text in comic sans or something completely annoying like curlz? Anyone else have this fear? Or am I not understand the purpose of this tool correctly?
Not really for me, i think it will just make good design stand out, if bad designers make poor font choices that affect(effect?) the readability of a page..hopefully people just won’t look at them
@Steven W. Sorry didn’t realise you had already said pretty much the same thing!
Pretty much what people said about desktop publishing in the ’80s. The Ransom Note effect.
Designers can create awful pages already. Take a look at some MySpace pages some time. At least if their ‘individuality’ is confined to a css file, it will be easy to over ride.
It’s a legitimate fear. But the benefits for designers outweigh my worries. Some will always make a mess of things, but we shouldn’t let that hold back the state of the art.
I’m not worried about people using bad type on their websites. Bad type treatments already exists on the web and people are going to continue to implement poor design. Sites that use type well will stand out and good design will be appreciated even more. It might even create a niche for good designers and in turn create a higher demand for those who know what they’re doing.
Mary,
with great power comes great responsibility 🙂
I think the price we have to pay for powerful tools, is that some may well misuse them. Old timers will recall the epidemic of font elements of the mid 1990s. They’ve long gone now, demonstrating that in time, good design practices emerge and win out.
Given the opportunity to use so much richer type on the web, and the chance that others will do awful awful things with that opportunity, I think most designers will choose, and be thankful and excited for the opportunity.
john
How about including a link to the actual foundries and fonts? Would make this page a lot more useful 🙂
@ Erwin — Agreed!
I got my email invite to sign up, and am hesitant about which plan to choose because I can’t find anywhere to view the actual fonts. Some of them I recognize, but it will take ages to manually go to each foundry’s website and look for a visual reference on the fonts…
Hopefully, this is just a growing pain, and all will be revealed when the full Typekit website is up.
Thanks for including the Japanese M+ fonts 🙂 Can you list fonts by supported languages for non-Roman ones? About to make an account so it might already be there, but it’d be nice if this info was available publicly.
Also, any plans for other weights of M+?
Thanks for the early invitation to try out Typekit.
I really enjoyed the simplicity of it all, I will definitely be purchasing a plan sometime in the future.
Also an idea that might be useful: When checking out the full list of fonts available for the plans, it would be nice to see the fonts listed set in the actual style of the font, this way I can compare easily all on one page. Or when browsing all the fonts it can say which font is associated with which plan.
Other than that great job so far! 😀
I signed up at the Portfolio level and am having a lot of fun playing around. Haven’t published my experiments to the web yet, but in due time…
THANK YOU so much for this resource!
When you have time to breathe, it would be nice if we could suggest fonts we’d like added to the (already impressive) library. Also, I’m guessing there’s no chance of Adobe getting on board?
Are you kidding? The only serious fonts here are Bello Pro and Proxima Nova. If this is your offer, I will stick to Georgia & Co.
You should probably be a bit more discerning, there are quite a few quality faces above (some of my favorites being the TypeTogether ones) and more being added all the time. But if you don’t like beautiful type, that’s cool too 🙂
I doubt if you have even the slightest idea of what you’re talking about. There are some very good quality typefaces in that list!
I am missing some of the excellent exljbris (http://www.josbuivenga.demon.nl/) fonts though.
I like how this has been implemented a lot, but this will only truly be useful when more foundries sign up- I’d be an instant paying customer if h&fj jumped on board for example. Exciting stuff regardless.
Yup. I second this. Where is that sexy Gotham? *drool*
Frankly I’m a bit disappointed with the font list. Where are the great fonts we see in printed publications? I’m talking about the masterpieces from FontFont, Adobe, Linotype, H&FJ, Font Bureau, Emigre, etc. I’m not saying your fonts are ugly, but you’re launching a risky pioneering service and you need top fonts to succeed. Premium customers are interested in quality, not quantity.
@ Silvio: I agree that we want to see fonts from [your list] but the larger foundries (and Adobe, for instance, is more than a foundry) have a lot of stakeholders in house who have to agree before the company can sign on to this. I’m cautiously hopeful.
How about some math fonts? Scientific communication on the web is really limited by the font problem. It forces websites to use bitmap images for equations which do not scale and have other issues.
glad the invites whent out and am really excited to see this take shape, but, i to was a little underwhelmed at the font list. i understand the big boys arent going to let helvetica out of the gate right away, but it would be great if you had a more visual list of fonts with maybe some recommendations for popular font alternatives. i receognize very few of the fonts in the lists you published, so some visual previews of them would really help.
I just tested Typekit and I love it.
However, I could use some more info about each font before I embed it to the website. For example as a Greek I need to know if a font includes Greek characters.
Prices are fine for me.
Anyway, Typekit is certainly going to change the way the Web and typography interact. Keep on the good work.
just got an early invitation to try out Typekit! well… let’s give it a try!
The world needed this 15 years ago. Can’t wait to try it out asap!
No Kinescope from Simonson?! That font is gorgeous, please add as soon as possible.
In the future, are you planning to work with foundries so that they can offer people who have already purchased their fonts the ability to access them through Typekit – either for free or a small fee?
Would you mind dropping me an email, i’d be interested in a chat. TypeDNA is a new cutting edge Font Manager and CS suite plug-in set.
Also. Did I miss the search feature? If there is not one… where is it?! Hehe.
@Jim: “No Kinescope from Simonson?! That font is gorgeous, please add as soon as possible.”
I’d love to add it to TypeKit, but I’m reluctant because it relies heavily on OpenType layout features for it to set properly, which are not supported by any browsers yet.
Aww, shoot. I’m a big fan of your work and was hoping to ease my life a little by being able to use Kinescope as text. I had tried out Cufon with much success, but removed it because of the legal issues surrounding it (I was also secretly hoping Typekit would be able to support it).
I guess I’ll stick with images for now and hopefully find another similarly beautiful font for pullquotes and blockquotes.
We are very excited about this! How can we get an invite!
Wooo Hoo!
How about putting up a page using your solution and showing how these fonts look on a real web page? It would be nice to be able to load the test page in several different browsers to test how it works cross platform.
There are few good website using this technology: cufon.
You can see an example of font nested in html here: http://www.kreativehouse.it
Guys, what about cyrillic fonts? Is there a chance?
I think it would be great to have a link to Typekit. I agree with totally agree with John Jame Jacoby. I was and still am in the business and feel we were screaming out for this. We had computers 15 yrs ago when I was doing my btec but had to do any fonts by hand or print it of then transfer it. So laboriously slow.
Это хорошо что вы начали вести блог,ведь у вас это отлично получается и надеюсь будет еще лучше. Главное писать о том,в чем вы разбираетесь. Удачи. 🙂