Font Freedom Finally Here?
Just saw this story about how Google is introducing a font directory and API that promise to let us web designy types a lot more freedom in the fonts we use on web sites. Currently we’re pretty much restricted to Arial or Verdana for sans serif and Times New Roman for serif.
Here’s the skinny on what Google’s bringing to the table:
The Google Font API provides a simple, cross-browser method for using any font in the Google Font Directory on your web page. The fonts have all the advantages of normal text: in addition to being richer visually, text styled in web fonts is still searchable, scales crisply when zoomed, and is accessible to users using screen readers.
And here’s an example of what something would look like in the new Google font “Tangerine.”
The quick brown tangerine jumped over the lazy tangerine.
Pretty neat, huh? Here’s a few other examples of the more distinctive/interesting fonts available. Note that I picked them not because they’re my favorites, but because they are the most different from what we’re used to.
This is IM Fell.
This is Lobster.
This is Reenie Beanie.
All I had to do was add
to the
It’s a very limited set of fonts for now, but I’m sure as it gets expanded I’ll find ways to use this technique to improve the typography of the sites I design.
Wuvving the Wonderful World of WordPress
Things have been going well throughout the year, with the exception of me completely forgetting/neglecting to blog about my experiences. I’ve been building sites and blogs for friends and a few actual clients, as well as doing more with it in my day job. It’s nice synergy between the three, as I get pushed to do new things in one arena and always end up saying “OMG that totally solves the problem with XYZ on the Solace site!”
Lately I’ve been finding more and more resources that help me efficiently build sites that meet the needs of clients, and make it easier for them to manage the contents. I plan on blogging about my favorites individually, as finding and picking plugins makes ALL the difference, but for now I’m just gonna mention and link to a few of the new ones I’m discovering so I don’t lose track of them.
(By the way, when I first built the Solace site I created this page to describe what I was doing and rattle off the key plugins that I was using to use WordPress as a CMS for a corporate web site. It’s a little out of date in terms of the plugins, but has good baseline info.)
Anyway, here’s some stuff I’ve come across in recent months that is rockin’ my world.
- WooThemes makes awesome pro themes that I’m finding remarkably powerful and easy to customize.
- WPQuestions lets me ask urgent questions and get prompt responses from experts, for a fee that I’m more than willing to pay.
- Powerful Plugins
- Improved Include Page lets you add a simple snippet of code to your templates and have it pull in contents of other pages. Awesome for home pages.
- Widget Context that lets me put different widgets on individual pages, every page of a section, whatever.
- Enable Media Replace that lets me replace images in the media library without changing their URL. Best use is letting clients change images taht are hard-coded in the templates/themes I build them, like headers and backgrounds.
- DM-Albums is an awesome image gallery tool that I like better than the ones most people recommend, Zen and NextGen
- This article 10 Steps to a Client-Friendly WordPress CMS provides links to a bunch of plugins that do things I’ve long wanted to do. It’s dated as many of the links go down dead-end roads, but here are some gems I definitely need to keep track of. The most promising ones that do things I haven’t beenable to do thusfar are:
- Navigation List plugin that makes your nav bar completely customizable yet client-editable
- Flutter that lets you add custom fields to templates without programming
- Side Content that lets you put page-specific sidebar content.
More to come…hold me to that. : )
Livin’ the Dream, Baby
For quite a few years I’ve had this back-pocket plan of someday leaving the corporate world for the freedom of being an independent marketing communications (commonly called marcom) consultant. I want to be able to stick my tongue out at the notion of “over the hill” by enjoying this great big beautiful world with my lovely wife Holly and bouncing not-so-baby boys Bryce and Gavin. That might mean going on month-long trips every summer and it might mean making it to every single one of their volleyball matches and judo tournaments, I don’t know yet. I just know that to live that life I’ll need two things: 1) Money. 2) The flexibility to earn that money working on my own terms…where and when I want to work.
I like to think I’m pretty good at marcom (actually I think I’m really good…humility is not one of my gifts, sorry) and I actually enjoy it. As such I know I’ll eventually be able to earn a good living on my own terms while doing something I like very much, i.e. helping people and companies better communicate and interact with their markets and customers. In particular, I think marcom consulting is right up my alley because of my versatility. I am confident writing anything from ad copy to whitepapers, designing everything from logos to full on web sites, and building some pretty sophisticated web sites.
To be clear, this is NOT what I’m doing at this time.
I’m extremely happy in my position at Solace Systems. I get to work on fun projects for a fantastic manager as part of a great team, and I feel like I’m adding real value to a marketing and sales engine that is bringing to market some of the most compelling technology I’ve been around. This is Phase I of GBarr the MarCom Guy: moonlighting. My goal is to replace middle-of-the-night hours spent in front of the TV or playing video games with productive and satisfying marcom work. Doing so will help me build out my portfolio and skillset while establishing relationships with clients and fellow consultants. And, yes, bring in a few extra dollars during these tough times.
It should be an interesting ride, please keep me in mind if you need, or hear about somebody who needs, high-quality marcom work (brochure, logo, business card, web site, whatever) at a great rate.