Extensis Makes Web Fonts Easier with WebINK
Press Release
Extensis, a division of Celartem Inc., has announced a public beta for their new web font service, WebINK (www.webink.com). Built using patented and patent-pending font management technologies that have been extended as a cloud-based service, WebINK gives designers the benefit of using custom fonts on their site without worrying about supported font formats or font licensing issues.
“Leveraging deep knowledge of fonts, font management, and the graphic design customer, developing a web font service was a logical step for Extensis,” said Celartem CEO, Osamu Ikeda.
Focused on Quality
For years, web designers have been very limited in their choice of typography on the web. Typography was limited to the few standard fonts installed on a reader’s machine, or required rendering static images or JavaScript tricks to render custom typography – none of which is optimal for text display. WebINK changes all of that, making professional-quality typography available to modern browsers – without JavaScript or other programming hacks.
“As graphic designers add web design to their repertoire, Extensis, with our quality type foundry partners, is helping bring the polished typography that print designers expect into the web world,” said Thomas Phinney, Senior Product Manager for Font Solutions.
Extensis has focused heavily on quality at all levels when developing WebINK, including:
• Thousands of quality fonts are available as part of the public beta – from body copy classics to the innovative and cutting-edge.
• Leveraging Extensis’ patented and patent-pending technologies
• Includes multiple ways for users to manage their WebINK font collections, from an intuitive online interface or through new WebINK features integrated into a forthcoming update to Suitcase Fusion.
• Solid W3C standards compliant implementation of the @font-face tag, and includes support for a wide variety of web browsers, such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome, and others.
• Full localization and support for French and German language at launch.
Provided using an affordable subscription model, WebINK offers an inexpensive entry to using web fonts, and is expandable to meet the most demanding enterprise needs.
Proven Technology Innovations
WebINK is built upon a global, cloud-based server backbone of proven, patented server technologies from Extensis. This extends the stability that Extensis server font management customers have known for years to the web.
Extensis supports the leading web font technologies that give site designers the peace-of-mind required when designing for multiple browser support. Font formats such as TTF, EOT, WOFF, and SVG are served to the appropriate browsers behind-the-scenes, allowing designers to focus more on the design rather than the technical details of making things work.
WebINK font collections can be managed online, or if preferred through features integrated into Suitcase Fusion. New features added to Suitcase Fusion provide a seamless management of print and web fonts.
Using a unique web preview feature in Suitcase Fusion, any web page can be previewed without any changes to the website code, to show how it would look using WebINK fonts. This allows users to quickly preview and select web fonts for their site.
Global Type Foundry Partners
With an eye for quality, Extensis has partnered with leading type foundries from the United States, Europe and around the world to offer high quality fonts prepared to work well on the web.
“Good fonts are never the product of an individual, but are always the result of teamwork – between skilled designers and engineers. We have always strived to produce the highest quality work, so we are now excited to be working with Extensis to deliver our Exclusives library to a fresh medium and a wider audience. Their commitment to innovation, reliability, and quality will mean that our typeface designs will be seen by more people in more places than ever before,” said Bruno Maag of Dalton Maag.
To showcase the variety and quality of fonts available from WebINK, Extensis recently launched an online “playground” where users can browse, select and implement fonts from all partner foundries, including:
• Dalton Maag
• Darden Studio
• exljbris
• Mark Simonson Studio
• P22
• Porchez Typofonderie
• ShinnType
• TypeTogether
• URW++
“I’m impressed with how easy WebINK makes it to preview and add web fonts to a site. Due to Extensis’ years of experience developing font management applications, and their focus on providing quality typography, it was an easy choice for me to partner with Extensis in this new web font service,” said Jean François Porchez of Porchez Typofonderie.
Extensis leads the way by providing a service that is accessible to non-English speaking users. Users select the number of glyphs to include on a website. From the full font character set that supports a wide variety of languages, or if preferred, a subset of the font glyphs that includes only Western European or English characters. Additionally, designers can use Suitcase Fusion in one of seven supported languages, or access WebINK online in English, French or German. With cloud servers in both the US and Europe, WebINK provides the best access and language support of any web font service today.
What’s Next?
WebINK development continues, and a full public launch is expected late this summer. Extensis invites interested users to join the public beta to test WebINK free-of-charge through the summer. Visit www.webink.com to preview fonts, play with the service, and join the beta.
To help Suitcase Fusion users get a taste of web fonts, with the next release, all Suitcase Fusion users will receive a free introductory WebINK account with their new or upgrade purchase. Look for more details as the public beta concludes, late this summer.
