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perrybrus
Inspiring
August 31, 2014
Question

Use commercially available webfont or redraw corporate typeface

  • August 31, 2014
  • 1 reply
  • 1268 views

I have this dilemma:

I'm about to re-design the corporate website, the corporate typeface that's been used as display typeface for print material and offline media for years is a custom product made back in the day. When I try to use that typeface as a webfont it looks "cracked" and jagged at certain sizes and alright at some resolutions. In other words not optimal. Since the administration at work is keen on stretching the visual guidelines from print to web I contacted the external type designer that said he could try to redraw it to make it look better at pixel sizes for web. When I browse rather large company websites out there I see that many of them don't use their classic corporate print typeface online but have chosen to use readymade webfonts from Google, FontSquirrel or similar, and they use some classic reliable screenfont as their bodytext typeface, like arial, open sans, verdana etc.

So what do? Is it becoming more common these days to actually use the good old corporate typeface also on web in terms of display fonts? Could the old trusted "print typeface" be redrawn to suit the needs and work from H1 to H8 for instance? Just to be clear, I'm talking about headlines / display typeface and not the body text in this case. I'm pretty sure I'm able to convince the CEO over here that using our printbased body type as a bodytxt online is a rather messy affair.

Appreciate any input on this!    

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1 reply

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Thomas Phinney
Inspiring
August 31, 2014

Speaking as somebody who just spent the last five years of his life helping create and run a web font service, including curating its font library....

"Is it becoming more common these days to actually use the good old corporate typeface also on web in terms of display fonts?"

It is certainly becoming "more common." Precisely how common, I can't say, but more so. More importantly, it is the sensible thing to do, at least for display sizes. Today, everybody should be able to maintain a reasonably consistent visual identity across web and print.

"Could the old trusted "print typeface" be redrawn to suit the needs and work from H1 to H8 for instance?"

H8? How small is your H8?

Depending on how small you want to go, it may not need to be redrawn, unless it was badly crafted it in the first place, or it has very thin elements. Of course, there are a range of adjustments one could make... your "redrawn" might mean something less extreme than I am thinking.   

The minimum usable size for a web font depends on a bunch of things. Approximately:

- whether you are using mixed case or all caps (seeing as you are talking headings)

- the design itself (x-height, stroke weight, how thin the thins are, how open the apertures are, etc.)

- how well crafted it is in terms of proper outline construction, etc.

- how well hinted it is (for Windows and Android)

- what browsers and OS versions you care about the rendering on

"When I try to use that typeface as a webfont it looks "cracked" and jagged at certain sizes and alright at some resolutions."


I'm not sure what "cracked" means. You could post a screen shot showing both good and bad rendering, naming the px sizes used, and the browser and OS versions involved.

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perrybrusAuthor
Inspiring
August 31, 2014

Hi,

Thanks for the response. In terms of lowest size for the display usage I'm thinking of somewhere around 12px. The typeface has three weights that spans from thin, light to medium. The latter is more like bold, and that's quite suitable in terms of online Headline usage. It's this weight that I'm measuring for web usage cause the other ones would look too weak. My initial plan was to use it in uppercase only, but I can't decide cause uppercase can act a bit too loud when used at H1, H2 measures of 24px and 21px. But lowercase can look a tad weak at 12 and 14 px for instance, and switching between upper and lowercase is not an option in my book. When I compare the corp. typeface with common Google webfonts like Oswald or Jockey One for instance, these two looks to be more "rigged" for screen viewing of course. It seems like my corporate typeface is close but no cigar.

I didn't quite get your take on using corp. print typeface online. Do you mean it's the sensible direction to walk, or did you mean using typefaces cross media is something more companies should do, but don't? I can't figure out what's best practice these days cause rather huge corporations don't convert their classic traditional typeface that they use in stationary and in ads, to online media. Many of them just pick one of the 700 (last time I checked) Google webfonts and separate between web and offline media.

When it comes to my audience the tech specs are mostly PC on Windows 7, although some are still on XP with that horrible ClearType Windows XP font rendering. How well hinted it is (for Windows and Android) is a very good question indeed. I'm not a typeface designer, nor a typographer, but I wouldn't hold my breath. After all, the typeface in hand is made in 2003 so my best guess would be that almost all the sans-serif fonts in the Google webfont library handles smallscreens better than "my font". When I use the word "cracked" I almost mean jagged or even blurry at times, it doesn't look that legible on certain web orientated sizes, so the webmaster that administrates the CMS have spent a lot of time trying find the exact sizes where the typeface looks alright. So I can't follow the basic principles best practice in terms of Headline sizes.

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Thomas Phinney
Inspiring
December 28, 2014

Apologies for the belated reply. I think I need to tweak my forum settings to get replies to my posts forwarded to my email.

Do you mean it's the sensible direction to walk, or did you mean using typefaces cross media is something more companies should do, but don't?

The former was what I meant, but the latter is also true.

Your online sizes are on the small size in general. I mean, 12 px is something I would consider small for online body text, let alone a heading. Although in all caps and a bolder weight, it could be a heading, I suppose. I suggest people doing web site design start by trying body text at 14-16 px.

You could also consider just getting somebody expert in this area to take a look at your typeface and see what's up with it. It may be that just running it through ttfautohint would help. Or perhaps there are some underlying design issues that make a new typeface the best option....

I'd be happy to refer you to a colleague, or take a quick look myself.

T

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