Designing with web fonts in their offline workflow has been a stumbling block for web designers around the globe. Today, Extensis, a leading provider of font management solutions, is ending this conundrum with the release of their new Web Font Plug-in. Designed to work inside Adobe Photoshop, Extensis' Web Font Plug-in provides web designers with free access to thousands of WebINK fonts, sourced from world-renowned foundries, for use in their web designs.
For the vast majority of web designers, the creative process begins on the desktop in Adobe Photoshop, where designers create their initial mock-ups, and then quickly moves to the web for final production.
"Since most fonts are licensed based on where they will be used--on the desktop or on the web--their traditional workflow requires that designers own two separate licenses for the same font to be license compliant," says Thomas Phinney, Extensis' Senior Product Manager for Fonts and Typography. "Our Web Font Plug-in frees web designers from needing to license desktop fonts to do mockups of their web site designs."
Up to now, web designers have been using inconvenient workarounds to accomplish their task: either by designing directly in CSS code or by choosing a "close enough" alternative that is already available on their desktop. Both are imprecise, stop-gap options. Professional web designers need the same font throughout the design process: from mock-up all the way through web delivery.
Today, Extensis is streamlining the web design process with its new Web Font Plug-in for Photoshop, which gives designers the freedom to design offline, find the font that best meets their design needs, and then license the font when they are ready to go live on the web. Users simply activate a free web font account on Extensis WebINK and the Web Font Plug-in provides free use of WebINK fonts--from foundries like Optimo, Our Type, and Dalton Maag--for mocking up web site content.
Chris Meyer, Extensis' Senior Product Manager for Font Solutions, noted, "Having access to web fonts in the design process has been a hot topic in the design community. Finally, designers can start the creative process using the fonts they will ultimately use in their web production. We are thrilled to unveil a solution that closes the creative loop and opens the door for more experimentation."