Fonts
Aug 7, 2020
Learn about webfonts from HN discussion.
Why are web fonts used?
webfonts are used because fonts are considered intelectual proprty, and have restrictive licensing. If a web designer wants to use a font on a webpage it can be a big prblem to get the licence to use it. by using a font api, you are using fonts that are already licenced by google. web fonts are also a way to make traffic more efficient, because many sites would be sharing the same font data, so they can be cached easier it also means that only google gets to track you data, and not lots of diferent font providers without them we would be limited to looking at web pages in fonts that are installed on the OS, and OSes all have diferent sets of fonts, so pages would look diferent on diferent systems
What fonts are on all systems?
there are a few microsoft fonts that were released in the 90s that can be found on linux to, but they have to be installed from a CAB file.
Spirals as base for font design
basically bu variying the value of a curve equation you can get many types of curves, these curves can be put together in descretly to make a shape. This work is about using a sipral equation to make up fonts that look nice.
A man who worked on the google font project at launch, Raph Levien, wrote a PHD thesis called “From Spiral to Spline: Optimal Techniques in Interactive Curve Design”. “The Euler spiral is an excellent choice for this generator curve.” “the properties of the various interpolating splines explored in this thesis, to facilitate choosing the best one for any given application. In using these splines for drawing a number of fonts, I also found they brought an aesthetic quality to the work.”