Fixing the future of web fonts

Those who aren’t in design take for granted what we see as the written word on the screen. It really isn’t as easy as it looks to be able to present words in a way that are appealing, legible at different sizes, and capable of delivering the appropriate messages without being part of the messages themselves. These are some of the challenges facing the future of web font design.

When you buy something, I bet you want it to work. Heck, even if you use something for free — maybe borrowed from a friend — I bet you want it to work. No one prefers hiking boots that are too tight (or too loose), a car that shimmies when you drive faster than 40 miles an hour, or a kitchen knife that can’t cut a tomato. And Web designers don’t prefer fonts that don’t fit a project, fall apart in different browsers or can’t be used in a mock-up.