Type design for the web is a subject usually discussed amidst snickers and groans and only occasionally peppered with epiphanies not dissimilar to “why didn’t I think of that?” While only a speed bump along a path of monolithic obstacles we face as we forge the Next Big Thing, web type has become a symbol of every designer’s frustrations with this fantastic (and finicky) medium.

For eleven weeks early Winter months of 2008, I taught eighteen design students at the Art Institute of Portland how to stop worrying and learn to love web type. I covered the basic rules of readability, hierarchy and emotional impact. I evangelized the importance accessibility and web standards, how they allow us to design for different mediums as well as those with sensory impairments. I honestly and pragmatically demonstrated the technical limitations of HTML and CSS.

And then I showed how to get around them.

A favorite technique for myself and my students was the use of sIFR, though its quirky setup and reliance on Flash eventually made me re-evaluate its necessity. I returned to embracing native web fonts like Verdana and Georgia (thank goodness for Matthew Carter) with a smattering of @font-face here and there. Not until last week (while working with Elizabeth Miller at Studio D) did I encounter a need to try the latest JavaScript-powered web type solution, cufón.

There’s a lot to like about cufón. Its use of the canvas tag in most browsers and VML in Internet Explorer eliminates the need for any proprietary plugins. Setup is surprisingly swift; generate the JavaScript with the handy online form, call the Cufon.replace method and off you go!

But there was something else, too. I swore cufón looked better.

Only one way to find out! Read the rest of this entry…