Question

How do I create very thin fonts with CSS, like at http://www.google.com/landing/newgadgets/ ?

Right now I’m using this, but I’m on a mac and I don’t think “Helvetica Neue” is supported on windows.

h1{
  font-size:64px;
  font-family:Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
  font-weight:100;
}

Any ideas for thin, crisp fonts?

Answer 1

Google is using their font API and CSS’s @font-face

See the following reference in their code:

<link href="//fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Open+Sans:300,400,600,700&amp;subset=latin" rel="stylesheet">

Below is the exact definition that “registers” said font:

@font-face {
  font-family: 'Open Sans';
  font-style: normal;
  font-weight: 400;
  src: local('Open Sans'), local('OpenSans'), url('http://themes.googleusercontent.com/static/fonts/opensans/v5/cJZKeOuBrn4kERxqtaUH3T8E0i7KZn-EPnyo3HZu7kw.woff') format('woff');
}

Then they simply apply that font to element/s:

h1, h2, h3, h4, blockquote, q, .maia-nav ul {
   font-family: 'open sans',arial,sans-serif;
}

Note: @font-face fonts don’t render crisply on downlevel browsers. If you need to support them try – http://cufon.shoqolate.com/