Monday, March 07, 2005

Microsoft has commissioned six new font families designed expressly for reading on-screen with their ClearType technology. Unveiled at the Association Typographique Internationale conference in Prague last year, the new typefaces triple the number of quality on-screen faces a designer can choose.

The fonts will be available to Mac users only if Apple decides to license them. Apple has no set plans to do so at this time, according to Roger Siminoff, Apple senior marketing manager for professional graphics markets. The collection is exclusive to Microsoft and will be shipped as part of the next version of Windows in 2006, according to Mike Duggan, Microsoft's lead typographer in the ClearType and Advanced Reading Technologies team.

The six new typefaces range from elegant to sturdy to playful. This variety will do a lot for designers and editors who want more choices for highly developed fonts for the screen as they work to define the personality of their sites.

For a preview of the ClearType Font Collection: "Calibri," "Cambria," "Candara," "Consolas," "Constantia" and "Corbel," see Design Desk. The fonts are all named with a "C" so they will show up together in the fonts list.

Microsoft has done far more than any other group when it comes to readability research for the screen. The mission of the Advanced Reading Technologies team is one of Bill Gates' personal "Top Five" priorities, according to Bill Hill, director of the Microsoft group. Team expertise includes typography, cognitive psychology and research. View a report (in MS Word format) by Hill that helped to launch Microsoft's initiative.