Fonts for the web (2) - web fonts!

[iamback]

OK - so I didn't like 'web fonts' in their first incarnation, but that was when I still used a modem to get on the web, and downloading a font took way too much time. Of course even then some browsers at least allowed you to disallow that — with the result that some websites broke completely because they had not thought to supply an alternative.

That attempt at webfonts soon petered out - the internet (as a network) simply wasn't ready for it, choices were few, it all too too long...

Now they're back, and to be honest I still don't like them. They still add to the weight of a page (even though fonts can be 'compiled' to include only the characters you actually use), precisely those pages that often are already heavy. And, again, some browsers allow you to turn that off, including my daily tool Firefox -- and I do.

On the other hand, I recognize many people do like them, and they can be good for branding, especially when you can use the same distinctive font both on a website and in printed matter.

So... amazingly, I am actually looking for one or more nice fonts I can use both for things like business cards and for headlines on one or more of my photo websites (this partly depends on to what extent hosted photo sites can be customized!).

While working on my new SmugMug site (no, no URL yet, it's broken more often than not!) I've decided I want to use rounded boxes for anything that's smaller than a screen (i.e. excepting full-screen photos or slideshows). With the result that I've been looking for a nice desktop+web font that matches that...

Some keywords (terms that will pop up as categories or gallery names):

• cultural surfaces (site name)
• walls of istanbul
• walls of south india
• beautiful brick
• covered
• fences

It would also be nice if the font could easily be used to make a small logotype icon of 'CS' and 'MK' (or in lowercase). And it needs to be affordable!!

Trawled through the myFonts site with keyword 'rounded'; looking for fonts approaching 'rounded boxes'. A hint of architectural/technical drawing lettering would be nice but is not required. Different weights would be nice, not necessarily different widths. Since it's for headlines only, all caps or all lowercase is OK.

Top of my list (no order in these):

• Geometry Soft Pro™
• ArchiType
• Paragraph™
• Rotundus Rounded (nice rather pricy for me)

I have listed some more, but I'll leave it at this for now. Comments?