Before we get started, I just want to point out a couple of things relating to my tests to let you know how they were conducted and what was covered. For browser testing, I covered Firefox 3, Safari 4 and Internet Explorer 8 back down to 6. Earlier versions of IE were not covered as they are not used by many people anymore and other browsers were not covered due to their minority market shares. So for results, I point out that some are compatible back to IE6 but that doesn’t necessarily mean they will work in IE5 and earlier or some other modern browsers. It wasn’t a comprehensive testing environment but more of a brief overview of what we can use.

For the testing pages I set up, things were kept as simple as possible and besides the required styling for each option, I never altered much to give an accurate representation of how each of the options handles sizing, line heights etc. These are handled differently between each of them and so what you see is the default sizing for each technology.

Sifr

The first on my list and perhaps the most well known was sIFR which has been around for a while now and has probably been used the most. The fact that sIFR requires visitors to have the flash plugin installed tends to put a lot of people off using it but perhaps even more so is the attached stigma that it is difficult to set up and use. There are some great tutorials out there to help with getting sIFR up and running in no time. As with the other options out there, your text will degrade nicely back to the HTML alternative if the needed technologies aren’t available to visitors so I wouldn’t worry about that either. Something to note is that if you plan on using custom fonts with sIFR, you will need to have Flash installed on your system to create your files to begin with unless your chosen typeface has already been handled and uploaded to somewhere such as sifrvault where you can freely download SWF files for your projects.

On the plus side, sIFR offers some functionality that the others do not. Text is fully selectable just like it was HTML text and can be copied in the same way too. Hover states for links are fully supported without having to implement any hacks or plugins and it is supported right back to IE6. Load times are quick enough and text can be hidden until ready so we don’t see any flickering upon page loads. sIFR also gives ample spacing between headings and other elements whereas the others were not so liberal with the breathing room. Perhaps the major plus of using sIFR is the availability of fonts we can use and licensing options out there. There are configurations within sIFR to lock the files down to our own domain for more safety too. Take a look at F.A.Q number 20 from Hoefler & Frere-Jones as an example of allowed uses and their stance on sIFR. So whilst some require an additional license, the point is that there is currently one available and we can use the technology already.

Cufón

Having recently come across Cufón, I was interested to see how it worked and whether or not it was a worthy alternative to sIFR as people had suggested. The first thing I noticed about Cufón was the time in which it took to get up and running. Set up time is kept to a minimum and within a couple of minutes, it was working. Besides the ease of use, the only bonus I’ve found to using it over sIFR is the fact that it doesn’t require Flash to run. It is also fully compatible down to IE6 which is always a plus.

On the downside, there are a couple of areas where it is lacking although fixes and improvements are being worked on. Hover states for links are not yet currently fully support although there are fixes in place that are being tweaked. A big downside is the fact that text is not selectable so copy/pasting is out of question. Licensing is where we run into issues, as with the majority of our options, Cufón requires that we have the licensing available to upload fonts for embedding as it is part of the creation process and our choices are currently limited. Licensing for Cufón is something being worked on and you can read more about that in Cameron Moll’s article: Exploring Cufón.

Facelift

This was another I had not used before but had heard a lot about. Facelift, or Flir as it is often is called is another technology that does not require flash to run. Load times with Facelift were fairly decent but it took a bit longer than the others to configure and get it working properly and it feels a bit bloated compared to some of the others.

It is also supported back to IE6 and hover states are working with it. Text selection is limited to alt text at the moment but it’s better than nothing and should be OK if you keep your markup up to scratch. Licensing is an issue here too though; fonts are required to be uploaded in their untouched states and so this opens the doors to possible theft.

Typeface.js

This had been in my bookmarks for a while but I had not gotten around to testing it out. Support back to IE6 is covered with Typeface.js and it was quick to set up too. Hover states for links are not yet supported although it is a planned feature. Improvements are being worked on for text selecting as this only currently works in selected browsers and highlighting is not supported yet.

Spacing has handled particularly well with Typeface and it was the closest alternative to the HTML text when it came to default line heights and padding. Performance was good with the page not taking much time at all to load the replaced text. Licensing is where we are let down again as you must have rights to upload and convert your font ready for use. As with Cufón, licensing here should be easier to obtain to work on as we are not directly embedding the font on our pages which reduces risk of theft but there are still questions surrounding how secure of an approach this is.

Font-Face

Although current usage is limited here, @font-face is clearly the way forward. No extra technologies such as JavaScript or flash are required in order to use it as your text is just rendered as standard HTML text. This also has a significant boost on performance as we don’t have to wait for scripts to be executed. As it is just using regular text, there are no problems with hover states or selecting as experienced with the majority of the others.

Browser support isn’t as bad as you may expect with @font-face; it can even be run in IE6 with a little bit of work. For more on that have a read through Making Web Fonts Work by Jon Tan but the downside here is mainly licensing issues. If EULA issues can be worked on and sufficient permissions granted, it is a clear winner and most definitely the way forward.

The Tests

Onto the test pages themselves. Nothing out of the ordinary or special here, just something quick and simple to give us an idea of how the chosen options work. You can view the test pages here.

The Outcome

So, after taking a look at each of the above, which is my preferred choice? I would have to say sIFR at the moment. Even with it being a bit on the tricky side to configure, once you have it set up and working it does a better job than any of the others. I’m ruling out @font-face here as I don’t believe we can look to that yet as a production ready solution. Having licenses available for sIFR is a major bonus and having support for text selection and hover states put it at the top of my list. I would place Cufón a close second at the moment and if we can sort out some licensing options for it and fix some minor issues, it could definitely be a worthy alternative to sIFR and put us a step closer to using @font-face. Of course this is purely personal opinion and I wouldn’t exclusively stick to one choice myself.

If you’re looking for an option to use in your own projects, I would recommend you use either sIFR or Cufón. I’m not trying to put one up against the other or tell you not to use a particular option, just providing you with an overview of those available and my personal opinions of them. It would probably be best to look at each individually on a per project basis and choose something that fits the needs of the site.

Each of the above has their pros and cons. None of them are perfect either but at least it’s a step in the right direction and better than nothing. We all have to work within boundaries and it’s nice to see these boundaries being stretched constantly. Here’s to the future of fonts on the web. Feel free to leave your comments below as always and also share the article through your preferred service.

In the previous version of the site before I purged the database, I had written about an application called Phoenix from Aviary that was at a basic level, an online alternative to Photoshop that just ran straight from the browser and offered a lot of the same common functionality. Having the option to play around with layouts and designs online was fine but I would have still needed to export and download my designs to develop in my desktop editor.

That was until now. Well, until I had noticed the initial release of Mozilla Bespin anyway. Bespin is basically an online code editor that once again runs in your browser and offers a lot of the functionality you would expect from its desktop counterpart. The best way of explaining it would be to check out the video the team posted online.

A lot of the features are still being implemented and it’s very much early days in development but already, I can see the benefits of using this over my offline application. Imagine you are working on a project through Bespin and you are away from home without your laptop. You can now log in on any computer, go to your online dashboard and continue development or show a client what you have done so far. There are downsides to using it too but those that I spotted are being worked on. Such as collaboration. You’ll soon be able to share your projects with colleagues and work on the same things together.

Besides the design and development industry, there are now also multiple other alternatives to desktop suites that offer plenty of options. There are Google Docs which in its essence replaces the need for suites such as Microsoft Office. Clearly there are still plenty of desktop applications that have no online counterpart, but how long until that application you can’t live without is replicated and can be run from the comfort of your browser?

As always, thoughts are appreciated and welcomed, comments below!

When deciding to start freelancing, one of the initial things on my list was to design and have printed some business cards to hand out. Naturally, I was thinking I needed them and they were a necessity to anybody starting out. I never really thought too much about why I would need them though, I just had them made and thought I would be handing them out in no time and getting new clients through my use of them.

This didn't turn out to be the case. Not because I handed them out and clients forgot about them threw them aside but because I never actually handed any out. Finding them again recently, I started thinking about their purpose and if I would ever use them.

Each time I hear about business cards now, it's due to someone coming up with a gimmick of some sort in the production of their cards. Whilst it must be nice to pull out your card in front of some peers and have them be impressed by the quality of the print, the thickness of your card or the cool concept, does that actually pose any value at all?

Everything is accessible online these days and that's where I've also found my clients. If I was living in some large city, there may be benefits of having some cards to hand out to local businesses or other potential clients but I don't and I don't see the point of handing out business cards to other people in the same industry at conferences or anything – they are in the same business as me and a lot of the time, they're my competition too. With my connections being made online, it only makes sense to have my information there too and mailing out a card to a contact made online wouldn't make much sense at all.

So without using physical cards, would I need a digital alternative? I've seen a few examples recently of people having something just like this. Simple, single page sites that just hold links to your portfolio and contact information which is essentially a digital business card. Two of the better ones I've come across are those of Rogie King and Tim Van Damme who seem to have already grasped the idea of what I've been thinking.

How about you? Do you use your cards much if you have any? If you don't have any, do you still plan on getting some? As always, let me know in the comments!

When I first thought about setting it up, I hadn't put enough thought into how these things were done and what would be expected of me. The desire to just meet some new designers and developers took over so I just got the site up and hoped everything would fit into place when I didn't really know what I was doing.

Over the past few months, it's just been sitting there and I'm no closer to getting the first meet-up together. I'm definitely still interested in the project and need to get things moving. I just don't know where to start. I'm not sure how much of a budget it would take for venues, speakers and so on – any advice in this area would be greatly appreciated.

My main goal was just to connect people and possibly work together on some things but once setting up the site and checking out the others, my instant reaction was that this alone wouldn't be enough and people would be expecting more. A lot of the others have highly accomplished and respected people come and give presentations and talks. That sounds like a bit of a stretch to be able to set up but I feel it's what people would expect. I don't even know anyone worthy of talking that lives within a reasonable distance besides Andy Clarke and I simply don't have that kind of budget!

So here's what I'm thinking – I would like to get an initial meet-up together, nothing too formal or expensive. Maybe just a bunch of people out for a drink and a chat. That way we could gauge how much interest there is in the area and decide amongst each other which the best way forward would be and how we want the next one to go, if at all. Do you think this would be a decent enough start? It sounds more like a Tweet-Up to me than a Refresh event but at least it would be a start.

If you have attended or run your own local Refresh, please leave your comments below and let me know how you went about setting up or what it was like attending for the first time. If you live anywhere near to Chester and would be interested in meeting up with others, drop a comment here too. On that note, I'm wondering if there are any better ways of reaching local designers and developers. My audience is limited here as it is so the chances of those subscribers being local to me is even more limited. If you can think of any way of reaching the locals out there – comment that one up too!

For a while now, I've wanted to start producing WordPress themes and I'm always looking for some unique approach to pushing them out there, something different to what everybody else seems to be doing. If I was going to give them away, I would want them higher quality than the other free ones out there, on par with the 'premium' ones available. In that scenario, I would need some other way of possibly monetizing the project further down the line without completely giving up on the free idea. If I was going to sell them, I would most definitely need a unique selling point besides theme quality as the majority out right now claim to offer this 'premium' service but very few follow up on that promise.

Setting up and running something like this would take a fair bit of work, especially to get the initial amount of themes ready for download. Something that I would want to share with one or two others rather than attempt on my own. I'm not looking for some initial help, more so a couple of partners that are interested in the long term running of the site or service.

The other project I have started is an online community for designers and developers. This may not be so easy to get some help with as I know most of you are too busy to spare the time that is required in running something like this. I am currently in stages of theme development for the software and have already got the majority of the site set up. In this case, I'm looking for one other person to run the site with me as an administrator. Bearing in mind there is a fair bit of trust involved in handing over this kind of access, I will be looking for somebody that I know to a certain degree or somebody that I at least know I can trust. Community experience would be the main thing I looked for but above that are more importantly, interest in the community. There would be no point in having somebody with great experience that simply doesn't believe in the idea or doesn't want to become part of the community.

If you are interested in anything I've talked about above, please contact me for further information and I'll get back to you shortly. With my requests out of the way, I want to know if you are doing any interesting projects and if there's anything I could possibly help out with? I'm always happy to work with new people and help push new products out there so let me know if you think we could work together on something. I'm not looking for paid work here, just offering my help to those that feel I would be a good fit for their projects.

That about wraps up here and from now on, I'm going to try and keep to a weekly schedule for updating the site as I tend to let it slip from time and time and want to bring back some consistency. So get in touch and let's start building some stuff!

It actually turned out to be less work supporting the browser than it was blocking it. In order to block the visitors by serving them a custom page, I had to hide all of the standard content through CSS and then display some other content that was hidden to those with more modern browsers. Supporting it only needed a couple of image alterations. So besides wanting to maximize business and increase potential sales, it was actually easier and made more sense to me.

Whilst I have started supporting it again, I’m not making a major effort to ensure pixel perfection. I don’t mind if things don’t look exactly the same or some of the extra functionality is missing. As long as the site is functional on a basic level, that’s enough for me and those using a modern browser will benefit from extras while the others won’t know any different.

My stats have recorded a decent decrease in IE6 usage but the fact that it is still being used at all is enough of a reason for me to accommodate it as I’m not in any position to turn down potential clients by having my site be inaccessible to them. If I was a lot higher up that web celeb ladder, maybe I could be a bit more selective and could afford to not have those clients but I’m not and I can’t so it was a business decision before anything else.

Even though I have started supporting it after being pro-ban, I’m not going to urge others to do the same. It’s a personal decision in a lot of cases and if you don’t want to support it then don’t. I would still rather not have to deal with it but I think IE6 will still be around for a while yet and for me at least, that means supporting it if only on some basic level. Business is business as they say after all.

I rushed into each of my designs up to this point and didn’t think too much about the underlying structure. This led to several problems each time I wanted to change something. There wasn’t any consistency to my code and no style guide in place. I just made it up as I went along and got pretty lost pretty quickly. So I decided I needed to get some routine going and wanted to make sure the new site was future proof. Only time will tell if I succeeded with that one.

About the actual design, I’ve gone for something that implements a lot of graphic elements but is still relatively simple in its approach. I wanted to cut out all of the things weren’t needed and streamline the function of the whole site. I ditched categories altogether in return for tags alone. This makes a lot more sense to me as the majority of my posts relate to the web and design so they were all in just a couple of categories. Having tags instead allows me to be specific with sorting, without going overboard. With categories gone, I was running out of things to play in a sidebar which then led to further streamlining and the removal of the built in sidebar. There are still some side bar type elements on the homepage but they are only visible there. Single posts now have a lot more room on the page, taking up the full width of the wrapper. I’m not sure if that was a good decision but with the efforts made so far, it should be easy enough to replace the sidebar in the future.

I’ve included a links section in the footer this time around and there were a few reasons why. You may just be thinking I’ve done it for something in return but that’s not the case, the majority of the people on the list don’t even know they’re on there I assume. I’ve done it provide readers with something else to look at and with them coming to my site, I’m fairly sure they’ll find the links of interest too. If you’re on the list, by all means feel free to return the favour but I won’t be removing your link just because you don’t link back. On the other hand, should you wish to be removed from the list, just shoot me an email and I’ll do the honours. Please don’t contact me to be added to the list though as I’m not interested in exchanges or growing the list just yet.

This place also serves as a personal playground for my learning purposes. That’s possibly not the best option when it also acts as business site and after all, I’m counting on this site to bring in more clients and work. That said, I’m always trying new things, learning new technologies and the new design was another opportunity for me. I had not previously had much experience with Javascript and so decided to learn a bit more about jQuery and make some use of it. Thanks to all of those that helped during that time, plenty of patience was needed!

Finally, I’m fairly impatient too so I’ve gone ahead and uploaded the new design before completely polishing it off. Whilst it should remain completely functional in modern browsers, I have yet to do any testing in Internet Explorer so don’t be surprised if things are a mess on that front. There may be several blank pages too whilst I work out the rest of the content. I’ve completely started a fresh and have quite a bit to do which should keep me busy.

As usual, feel free to leave your comments and apologies in advance if those aren’t looking great yet but rest assured I’m working on it.