While things are still hazy about exactly how this new service would work, I’m rattled by the following section of the opening announcement:

We’ll be launching this summer with a great collection of beautiful and hardworking typefaces. We’ll offer a free version of the service to get you started, and a low-cost way to grow from there. A truly scalable professional version will follow soon after.

Pay? Again?

The issue with @font-face has largely revolved around licensing issues and the complications from the lack of DRM that it provides. Understandably, the type foundries are not willing to allow their hard work to be easily downloaded from linked font files.

The problem, at the moment, lies in this complicated licensing that is a result of technology failing to amicably meet the needs of type foundries and designers. As a result of this, it appears as if we’ll be renting our typefaces from a third party entity.

I already pay for a license to use typefaces within my design applications, and now I’ll need to pay again to use them in the final produced site: a recurring fee because files don’t host themselves.

While I’m excited that a group of influential people (who I admire) have taken this step towards making @font-face a more realistic tool, I have to wonder why we’re solving what is essentially a technical issue with yet more complicated legalize and extra money out of every designer’s pocket.

If the technology to link typefaces exists, designers can and will do so regardless of licensing. This will become the same battle DRM has been for the music and film industries, with the same outcome. The people who properly work through Typekit to protect the rights of the foundries will be the ones who pay extra money, while the ones who just link their font-files with abandon will be the ones truly enjoying @font-face.

Perhaps this is just a rant over lunch hour about something I don’t fully understand — and while I sincerely appreciate the effort — I think we may still be headed down the wrong path. Hopefully I’m just blowing smoke, because I’d love to see this service succeed.

The trickier part comes when handling data that users will interact with. For example, the archives here on Astheria are presented in a timeline format. It provides a visual cue to relevance of a post by how old it is, but also maintains a list format that is relatively easy to digest and use. Although the growing number of posts here may demand an alternative format.

This post will be written from the perspective of doing something similar in Wordpress, although the concept and the bulk of the code is applicable to any content management system, or in fact, anything that stores dates with items that are comparable! Granted, I’m not a PHP programmer, and I’m sure some of this could be done differently. However, I’ve received a number of requests via e-mail about how this was done, and thought I would share the code.

Please note that I’m providing this code ‘as is’ and am not offering any support or installation assistance. What this script will do is print an ordered list for each year of posts you have, along with a title for that year. Each list item will be vertically separated from its peers based on the time that has passed between the two. You can adjust the $distance_multiplier variable to adjust the scale of the gaps. Enjoy!

I had a bit of help fixing some hiccups in the code from my coworker and friend, Matt Gray.

<?php get_header(); query_posts('posts_per_page=-1');
	$dates_array 			= Array();
	$year_array 			= Array();
	$i 				= 0;
	$prev_post_ts    		= null;
	$prev_post_year  		= null;
	$distance_multiplier 	        = 2;
?>

	<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post();

		$post_ts    =  strtotime($post->post_date);
		$post_year  =  date( 'Y', $post_ts );

		/* Handle the first year as a special case */
		if ( is_null( $prev_post_year ) ) {
			?>
			<h3 class="archive_year"><?=$post_year?></h3>
			<ol class="archives_list">
			<?php
		}
		else if ( $prev_post_year != $post_year ) {
			/* Close off the OL */
			?>
			</ol>
			<?php

			$working_year  =  $prev_post_year;

			/* Print year headings until we reach the post year */
			while ( $working_year > $post_year ) {
				$working_year--;
				?>
				<h3 class="archive_year"><?=$working_year?></h3>
				<?php
			}

			/* Open a new ordered list */
			?>
			<ol class="archives_list">
			<?php
		}

		/* Compute difference in days */
		if ( ! is_null( $prev_post_ts ) && $prev_post_year == $post_year ) {
			$dates_diff  =  ( date( 'z', $prev_post_ts ) - date( 'z', $post_ts ) ) * $distance_multiplier;
		}
		else {
			$dates_diff  =  0;
		}
	?>
		<li style="margin-top:<?=$dates_diff?>px"><span class="date"><?php the_time('F j'); ?><sup><?php the_time('S') ?></sup></span> <a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></li>
	<?php
		/* For subsequent iterations */
		$prev_post_ts    =  $post_ts;
		$prev_post_year  =  $post_year;
	endwhile;

	/* If we've processed at least *one* post, close the ordered list */
	if ( ! is_null( $prev_post_ts ) ) {
		?>
	</ol>
	<?php } ?>

While it may not work for everyone, I know most people who visit this site are probably at least moderately interested in design, or more likely: are designers. I think it’s safe to say a good percentage of us are probably running around with Gotham installed on our computers these days; or Helvetica Neue, Avenir, Archer, or any other bits and bobs of popular typefaces.

So in the midst of waiting for CSS3’s @font-face to come save the day, I’ll be making use of what current technology exists to show the best possible design to the folks who can see it. And for those who can’t, you still get the old Helvetica goodness. That’s the beauty of the pre-existent functionality of font-family. So let’s play with what we have now, while we dream about tomorrow.

What does it do?

Well, in a nutshell, I’m hoping to simplify the way you monitor what the internet is saying about your sites, your brand, and yourself. As new communication mediums have evolved, simply googling yourself isn’t enough these days. At the same time, I’ve discovered a level of frustration with statistics tracking solutions that make it difficult to keep your finger on the pulse of your site. Without going into too much detail just yet, this is the problem I’m hoping to relieve, at least slightly. And having used the app for a few weeks now solo, I’m finding it to be a solid solution and good companion to my previous methods—at least for my day to day needs.

Yet-to-be-named?

Unfortunately, yes, I’ve been working with it on a particular domain and using what stood out at me on the first go around. That said I’m all ears to any suggestions any of you may have; hopefully the first paragraph was enough description, but if not maybe that’s a good thing. I’m a fan of random ideas.

So there you have it, the smallest of smallest tidbits I suppose, but I’ll be posting updates more frequently now that things are rolling along; as well as trying to make time for an article or two.

I won’t go into detail about just what it is (yet!), but I’d like to ask for your assistance so I can learn a little more about the problem, this should take no more than about two minutes to answer if you’d be so kind:

1. What software do you use to manage your site (CMS)?
2. What software do you use to watch your statistics?
3. Do you use any other software to manage or watch your website, if so, what?
4. What are your three favorite things to see reported about your website?
5. What are your three least favorite things about the software you use to manage or watch your website?

Typeface discusses the changes in the globalization of industry, and the effect of the computer and demand for faster results on the manual printing techniques which came before it. The Hamilton Wood Type Museum plays a central role, which shelters over 1.5 million pieces of wood type in rural Wisconsin. More importantly, it reminds us of the importance of the history of our profession and why we should cherish it. Be sure to check out the film’s about page for some more background.

A photo of just a taste of the Hamilton type collection

I’m sure you’re wondering if it can compare to Helvetica… While the production quality is a little rougher, I enjoyed it just as much (and granted, the editing was not fully complete for the screening). While it doesn’t have influential figures giving testimony, it does have a very humbling cast of passionate people who have lived through the evolution of the industry.

Norb, 83 years old and still cutting letters

I found myself chuckling quite often, while this is a documentary, it doesn’t feel like one. In the same vein as Helvetica, even those not fully enthralled with typography will enjoy it.

The gorgeous promotional website

I won’t deluge many details about its contents, but if you enjoyed Helvetica, I promise you will enjoy Typeface. It will be appearing in film festivals in the near future, I would expect showings in art theaters, and an expected DVD release in late 2009. Be sure to check it out if you have even a passing interest in typography.

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