I reviewed Suitcase Fusion 4 just over a year ago, and I’m looking forward to putting this latest version through its paces and sharing my thoughts soon.

Bland, store-bought cards have their purpose, but maybe they’re just not your style. For more creative types, we’re happy to provide this custom greeting card generator. Build a unique card to your own taste or pick a sweet original design from our gallery.

The update brings auto-font activation to InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop CS6, as well as the new Font Panel plugin for ID and AI (a Photoshop version is in the works).

If you’re a current Suitcase Fusion 4 user, simply visit the Suitcase Fusion menu and select Check for Updates to get the latest update. If you haven’t tried Fusion 4 yet, download the demo and give it a shot.

Jim Kidwell will be available for a live Q&A at the end of the webcast

Managing Fonts in Modern Digital Design Workflows
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
11:00 AM Pacific / 2:00 PM Eastern

To participate: www.extensis.com/sf4-design

Extensis has unveiled groundbreaking changes to their leading web font service, WebINK. If you are a seasoned web developer or just getting started in the fast-paced world of web design, it’s time to check out WebINK.

WebINK brings fonts to your website design, quickly, easily and affordably. You just select your fonts, drop the provided CSS into your site code and publish. It really is that simple.

I use WebINK to power the fonts used here at The Graphic Mac. I can tell you that it truly is as simple as Extensis claims.

You can learn more about WebINK here.

Quite a few of you, that’s who! They can be long, boring, and filled with legalese, but reading them can save you from costly missteps.

They’re font licenses, also known as the End User License Agreement (shortened to EULA). These documents cover what you can and cannot do with the fonts that you licensed. While typeface designs cannot specifically be copyrighted in the USA, the software that’s used to make them display properly on your computer can. This is why fonts are pretty much licensed like other pieces of software.

The company that I work for, Extensis, makes the font management utilities Suitcase Fusion and Universal Type Server. During a recent webcast about Server-based Font Management, I surveyed attendees and asked them the following question:

When you purchase a font, do you read the font license?

I was happy to see that almost half of the survey group actually read them. Since the survey was of people who are specifically interested in managing their font collection using a server, I was happy to see these results. That being said, in the wider market I’m not as confident that we would see as much interest in reading the details of each font license. I would definitely like it to see that percentage even higher.

Many type foundries (those who create and sell fonts) have worked to make their EULAs simpler and easier to understand. That being said, there are still many situations where you may need to purchase an extended or modified font license.

Some of the conditions that may or may not be permitted, or where foundries may require you to purchase an extended license include:

These conditions vary by foundry. First step is to definitely read the EULA that came with your font. Can’t find a copy? Check with the foundry. While foundries vary in size, so you may be communicating directly with the creator of your favorite fonts.

So, if you’re already on top of this, good job!

If you’re “less than confident” about your licenses, I encourage you to take that first step today. Knowing what your rights and responsibilities are will help you create with confidence.

Once you’re started down the right path, you might want to centrally manage your fonts and font licenses. We’ve created a document at Extensis that will help you determine if and how server-based font management could fit into your team. Take a minute to check out the Server Based Font Management Best Practices Guide (Free PDF)

Using fonts on your website was a pipe-dream just a short while ago. Plugins were introduced that allowed you to use Flash to load fonts on the fly, but the results were less than spectacular, and quite cumbersome to work with. But recently introduced technologies have made it possible for designers to display fonts on your web page using little more than a snippet of code.

I wrote a brief introduction to FontDropper 1000, a new service from Extensis, which allows designers to see what their site would look like using one of thousands of fonts available through Extensis’ WebINK technology. At the time, I could see that it was a cool technology, but I didn’t really follow-up on it because I’m not a “web guy” and figured it would be more trouble than it was worth.

WebINK allows for easy implementation of fonts, sizes and colors to an existing site

A few months ago, I met with a member of the Extensis team who happened to be in Phoenix for a convention, and we got on the discussion of why I hadn’t used their WebINK technology here on The Graphic Mac. I explained that I’m not a web guy, and the thought of hacking away for hours at my site code didn’t appeal to me. He then spent a few minutes convincing me to give it a try. If you’ve been a long-time visitor to this site, you’ve probably noticed that I did indeed get around to it a week or so ago, and it was incredibly easy.

As you can see in the image above, I used Arial exclusively for the site. But using WebINK I was able to quickly and easily change all the fonts on the site to exactly the font combination I wanted, as well as adjust the size and color for readability.

With instant previews of what my site would look like, I spent countless hours using FontDropper 1000 to play with different combinations of fonts. Because Extensis offers thousands of fonts, including the entire Google Web Fonts collection, as part of their service, I had plenty of combinations to try. Though it took me hours to decide what fonts to use, it only took a few minutes to copy and paste the required code into my site’s CSS – a fact I was quite proud of considering my knowledge of CSS is limited to little more than what CSS stands for.

All you need to do is sign up for an account on the WebINK site, play with FontDropper 1000 to see what your existing site will look like and choose your fonts. Once you do that, it’s a simple copy/paste job and you’re done. If you don’t have an existing site, or you’re in the process of re-designing it, they even offer a WebINK Photoshop plugin that allows you to use any of the available WebINK fonts in your Photoshop mock-up.

The WebINK site offers plenty of information and samples for you to read through, and a 30-day demo is available for you to test your font combination choices.

Overall, I’m thrilled that I was convinced to give WebINK a try, and I think any web designer will be quite happy with the ease of use and the results Extensis brings to adding fonts to your web design workflow.

Extensis' Web Font Plug-in makes website mockups in Photoshop easy

Designers have been able to use actual fonts in their websites for quite a while now, but integrating web fonts at all points throughout the creative workflow has been a challenge until now. Extensis closes the web font gap in the traditional web design workflow by adding Google Web Fonts to their plug-in for Adobe Photoshop. Extensis’ Web Font Plug-in already provides web designers with free access to thousands of WebINK web fonts, and now adds convenient access to hundreds of fonts from Google Web Fonts.

The advantage of using Extensis’ WebINK technology with the Web Font plug-in is that you can design your site mockup in Adobe Photoshop even if you don’t already own and have installed the actual web font you want to use on the site.

The free WebINK Photoshop Plug-in is included with Suitcase Fusion 3. If you’re not already a Suitcase Fusion user, you can download the trial version. The free plug-in will continue to work even if you choose not to keep Suitcase Fusion 3.

Extensis Web Font Plug-in makes using Web Fontss in your mock-ups easy

Most of the Foundries available in the WebINK service have made their fonts available for use in the Photoshop plug-in, and more are being added. The fonts are available in an easy to use Photoshop panel after signing-in to the service right in the panel.

To use the free Web Font Plug-in, you need to download and install the Suitcase Fusion font manager demo, and set up a free WebINK account. If you already own Suitcase Fusion, you can simply update the app. If you don’t want to use the Suitcase Fusion app to manage your fonts, the plug-in will continue to work after the demo expires.

Extensis makes it easy to see what different fonts will look like on your site

Font Dropper 1000 is the easiest way to test or design with web fonts from WebINK by Extensis. Just open FontDropper 1000 on any web page and start dropping fonts. See your changes instantly. Adjust font size, color, spacing and more.

The Font Dropper 1000 service is a simple bookmarklet that works in Safari, Chrome and Firefox. You should check it out, it’s pretty cool for web designers!