For this installment of the First Look series, James Williamson reviews the current implementation and future direction of web fonts: downloadable font resources that can be retrieved with the CSS @font-face declaration. The course begins with the evolution of online typography and current CSS font capabilities, and then dives into the W3C CSS Fonts Module specification, showing how to utilize web fonts, ensure cross-browser consistency, and how to use CSS3 to enhance the styling of web fonts. Font hosting services and tools such as TypeKit and the Google Fonts API are demonstrated. Exercise files accompany the course.

* What are web fonts?

* Understanding the font stack

* Using @font-face

* Rendering basics

* Choosing a font hosting service

* Downloading licensed fonts

* Generating web fonts

* Font sizing

* Transforming text

* Creating special effects with text shadows