Today, information graphics, or infographics, have become an essential element to any type of visual communication. With the rise of online social sharing, these elements have even taken on a viral life of their own. According to Google, infographics has been a trending search term for the past two years. There have also been more and more websites solely dedicated to showcasing the best of the best, like Information Aesthetics and Daily Infographic.
This year we sent a holiday video greeting to our clients, vendors and industry partners. Here is a version with my commentary on the creation process and some “behind the scenes” tidbits! See the original version here.
As we make a push from Web 2.0 to 3.0, there clearly is a trend that we are seeing in new web sites: the use of fonts to improve design, legibility and branding without sacrificing compatibility or searchability. One example these new web fonts is @font-face. @font-face is a css rule that allows you to use fonts from your web server to be rendered on your web page without having to worry about image replacement.
There is no need to sacrifice HTML text which helps search engines find crucial keywords on your web pages to elevate your web site on search results.
@font-face vs. image replacement
This is where this nifty CSS rule becomes handy. The only files needed for this are downloading fonts online from certain font sites (see below for links) and having the files uploaded to your web server. They are then linked in your CSS stylesheet. Image replacement requires slicing up a Photoshop document and saving a TON of images onto your web server which in the long run takes up a hefty portion of your server’s memory.
No need to sacrifice SEO
The great thing about @font-face as opposed to image replacements is that there is no need to sacrifice HTML text which helps search engines find crucial keywords on your web pages to elevate your web site on search results.
