The typography you use says a lot about your business. And in a marketing world where differentiation is the key to success, aren’t you tired of the lack of choices when it comes to website fonts? Well, fuss no more. Web fonts have arrived to rescue you from the typography doldrums, and our new e-book tells all. This guide explains: - What are web fonts? - Why they're as simple as 1-2-3. - How these new tools can radically change your marketing visuals, online and off. - How you can give mobile users the speed and quality they deserve. - How you can go global, in their language. - Why web fonts are better than images.

1. web
fonts
A New Tool for Web Typography
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ARIAL, TIMES, VERDANA, COURIER NEW, GEORGIA…what do all of these font families have
in common?
If you happen to be a web designer or developer, you could probably have told us that these
are a handful of the meager font-family options that are made available to those creating a
website. Considering the thousands of available font faces found in graphics programs and
all over the world wide web, the web-friendly choices are rather disappointing.
Not to worry though, because we have some good news for you. Google has recently devel-
oped and released a program that is already changing web typography as we know it. This
revolution has been dubbed “Web Fonts” and is a piece of cake to use! Google Web Fonts
allows anyone to obtain a new font for their website with three easy steps:
Step 1: Search and make a choice
The Google Web Fonts database can be combed through with any criteria of the user’s
choosing. Users can simply type in keywords in hopes of finding a font face similar to one
of their favorites, or can even narrow down a search with variables such as “thickness” and
“slant.” Fonts can also be found according to linguistic script or basic filters such as serif
versus sans serif.
Step 2: Review your choice
This part is quite straightforward. Once the user has chosen a font that will work well em-
bedded in their website, they will view all aspects of the font that Google Web Fonts has to
offer. Users will see all the styles and variations of their chosen font, so there is no mystery
behind a font choice!
Step 3: Copy and embed the code
Google Web Fonts makes this step as simple as can be, too. The code and directions for the
font of the user’s choice are on the page (and oh-so-easy to use, especially considering we
are all aware of how CSS3 works now, right?), ready for copying and pasting.
THE NEW GOOGLE
FONT INVENTION
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So, assuming you are all ready to break away from the Arial, Times, and Georgia bandwagon,
let’s talk a little bit about how this simple yet fantastic new tool can be useful for your com-
pany’s marketing.
Synchronization in terms of design
Perhaps all of the graphics on your website do not make use of fonts that fit the Arial, Times,
etc. mold. Though very typical, it can be frustrating not to be able to incorporate that curly,
bubbly, or otherwise creative font into your website’s design without spending a good chunk
of time on it in Photoshop. However, with Google Web Fonts, you can certainly find fonts to
match your graphics (or, likewise, find the fonts in Google Web Fonts prior to making graph-
ics) and incorporate your newly found fonts into aspects of your website that do not demand
a whole graphic to themselves.
Getting trendy
Out with the oh-so-popular Helvetica, in with a new font perhaps? A unique new Web Font
may be able to help you create a trend and attach a certain identity to your brand or com-
pany. Making good use of your favorite Web Font around your website, and maybe even in
your logo, would be a great way to revamp an old visual identity, or create an entirely new
one!

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THE FACT IS, this just-over-a-year-old tool is gaining popularity fast. There are currently
over 100 million font requests each day at Google Web Fonts! The website is also seeing
30% growth month-to-month. We think those are some pretty impressive statistics, and well
deserved, too.
When you consider that Google Web Fonts is becoming a mainstream tool, it only makes
sense to utilize it to the fullest extent for your online marketing needs. More than a handful
of prominent websites out in cyberspace have already delved into the open source dream
that is Google Web Fonts. For example, the Royal Wedding website made creative use of
Web Fonts by picking a font with a cursive, ‘handwriting’ feel to it for people to sign their
virtual guestbook. Norad Santa Tracker, a volunteer-run site devoted to making Christmas
stories a reality for children, uses Google Web Font’s “mountains of Christmas” (how fitting)!
There are numerous other sites around the web that use Google Web Fonts as well.
So maybe you thought of a creative way to incorporate Google Web Fonts into your site al-
ready. That’s what we like to hear…but here’s another idea…why not take Google Web Fonts
off of the web and into other areas of the marketing world? South by Southwest, a huge
music, film, and arts festival held each March in Austin, Texas, made use of Google Web
Font’s “lobster” typeface. ”Lobster” was used on South by Southwest 2011 t-shirts and other
merchandise, and consequently essentially became a visual identity of its own.
The fact that Google Web Fonts are completely open source is a huge factor in the philoso-
phy behind web fonts as well as the growing popularity. As technology becomes more ad-
vanced, and designers and developers form and share numerous ideas, open source tools
thrive around the web. On Google Web Fonts being open source, a Google Web developer
stated, ”they’re your fonts just as much as they are Google’s.”
Just in case you aren’t already convinced that Google Web Fonts can help you meet your
internet marketing needs, we will tell you a little bit about how great Web Fonts is for mobile
internet. By definition, mobile internet is simply the internet accessible via smart phone
or other mobile device. Obviously, with a large percentage of the world’s cell phone users
WEB FONTS NOW &
INTO THE FUTURE
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turning to smart phones, mobile internet tactics are fast becoming vital to the marketing
mix. Google Web Fonts has the ability to detect what kind of device the user is accessing a
website from, be it a laptop or a smart phone. Web Fonts then takes this information into
account to optimize the version of the typeface or font families that are being used on the
website in question to cater to the device. Let us also not forget that, in the case of mobile
devices especially, Web Fonts are a much better option than images. Why, you ask?
• Less loading time (Web Fonts take up way less storage space and use less bandwidth
than images!)
• Quality is upheld by Web Fonts even in the case of zooming in (whereas image quality
would decrease as if the viewer were to zoom in)
• With multilingual options, Web Fonts can work internationally (that fancy logo you make
with Web Fonts can be translated into Turkish and Arabic…could an image do that?)
Now, we just have one more question…
Why aren’t you using Google Web Fonts yet?
We will leave it at that for today, and next in our next article we’ll start some brainstorming
for marketing tactics with Web Fonts thrown into the mix.

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SINCE YOU NOW HAVE SOME BACKGROUND INFORMATION on this great new tool that
Google has developed for web designers everywhere, it’s time to apply that knowledge to
meet your marketing needs. To be a little more specific, we’re honing in on the key aspects
of successful e-marketing techniques. With so many tools and transactions available via the
world wide web, it’s important to realize that online marketing is valuable — or even vital —
to business. Now, you are probably wondering how can web fonts help you successfully add
value to your product or service when incorporated into your online marketing plan. Luckily,
we have a few ideas to help get you started!
First, let’s talk subscriptions.
In terms of subscriptions over the internet: email newsletters, blog RSS feeds, and more,
it’s important to be able to differentiate your material from the countless number of other
emails and syndicated material your customers are receiving on a daily basis. Obviously con-
tent is important. However, another differentiation technique lies in the aesthetic aspects of
your newsletter or blog feed. Photographs, or graphics of any sort, add interest. Web Fonts
could also be extremely useful in helping your company stand out. A unique font could re-
ally help with brand awareness if the font helps build a visual identity for your company that
makes it memorable to both first-time and fifty-eigth time customers, as well as any poten-
tial customers out there.
Second, let’s talk versatility with mobile devices.
If your current marketing plan does not include an extension to mobile devices (smart
phones in particular), it might be time to consider incorporating this into your plan-of-action.
In our last chapter, we touched on the versatility of Web Fonts to transfer over to mobile
devices, and discussed that Web Fonts are able to optimize typeface appearance in accor-
dance with the user’s device. This means Web Fonts are very versatile or all aspects of your
e-marketing plan. You can choose a token web font not only for your visual identity and
parts of your website, but also to use on a particular smart phone app that you have created
to encourage business.
WEB FONTS & YOUR
E-MARKETING PLAN
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Lastly, going global.
As we mentioned before, Web Fonts is available in quite a few languages. The reaches for
online marketing are truly limitless, and that is what’s so great about it! Billboards and
advertisements can be posted around various cities, but online advertisements and newslet-
ters can reach people worldwide quickly and easily. Sticking with our previously discussed
theme of versatility (in terms of consistency), Web Fonts are versatile in that they can be
translated into multiple languages. So, visual identity and website aesthetic appeal do not
have to be compensated for when you are trying to reach users residing on another conti-
nent (not if you are using Web Fonts, that is).

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