WITH RETINA DISPLAY technology on the verge of ubiquity and some of today’s best web design minds rightfully fretting about it (see PPK, Stephanie Rieger, Brad Frost, and Stuntbox if you’ve missed this latest Topic Of Concern), it seems to this old web slinger that web type is poised to replace photography as the dominant element of web design aesthetic appeal in the next few years.
After all, responsive web design already called upon us to create and swap multiple versions of the same image. And now Retina Displays reveal the lack of quality in all web images — compelling us, perhaps, to create high-resolution image versions which some users lack the bandwidth to download, and to lather our sites with yet more JavaScript as we try to detect whether or not each user’s device requires a higher-res image (shades of 1999!).
But type is type is type, and the higher the resolution of the device, the better that type will look, with no bandwidth overhead.
In that spirit, although we haven’t yet worked with it ourselves, we welcome the launch of TypeButter. Developed by David Hudson and designed by Joel Richardson, TypeButter is a plug-in that “allows you to set optical kerning for any font on your website.”
Soon, CSS and browsers will let us set type properly without the need for widgets and plug-ins. Until then, widgets and plug-ins fill the gap. Thank you, David and Joel, and all you beautiful web type designers and polyfill wizards.
