Insight
Websites and Web Fonts
Websites are generally composed of a sequence of information in the form of text and images. Text is rendered on screen using fonts, and because the choice of font significantly influences the overall impression of a website, fonts can be considered a critical element in web design.
In the past, fonts could only be used on a website if the font files were installed on the user’s PC. Web fonts, however, are a technology that allows websites to use desired fonts without requiring installation on the user’s device. By using web fonts, designers can move beyond the limitations of relying solely on default fonts and create websites that more accurately reflect their design intent.
Operating systems such as Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android each come with different default fonts due to licensing issues. As a result, even when using system fonts, websites inevitably appeared differently depending on the user’s environment. The emergence of web fonts was an innovation that enabled a consistent user experience regardless of operating system or device.
The Reality of Web Fonts
In addition to the advantages mentioned above, web fonts offer several other benefits. They help maintain a website’s search competitiveness without the inconvenience of adding tags to related information, and they integrate easily with automatic translation features, making them well suited for globalization. However, despite these advantages, web fonts also present a few fundamental challenges.
The first issue is increased traffic. Font files contain design information for characters. In general, Latin fonts have relatively small character sets and therefore tend to be only several tens of kilobytes in size. Hangul fonts*, however, are much larger, ranging from several hundred kilobytes to over 10 MB depending on the design.
*For production efficiency, Hangul fonts have often been designed with only the most frequently used 2,350 to 2,780 characters. Web fonts, however, must include the full Hangul syllable set (11,172 characters), as it is impossible to predict how they will be used on a website.
When font files are converted into a web font format (WOFF) for use in web environments, file size is reduced by about 50%. Using a more recent format such as WOFF2 further reduces the size by an additional 30–50%. Even so, the file size of Hangul web fonts remains burdensome for use on the web.
Traffic issues that originate from web font file size naturally translate into website loading times. Because web fonts are one of the resources required to render a website, they take time to download. Although internet speeds continue to improve with technological advancement, users’ connection environments still vary greatly. Most people have experienced images appearing slightly later as a website loads. In the same way, text may also appear with a delay due to the time required to download web fonts.
Situations caused by web font download delays are generally handled by web browsers in two main ways. The first is FOUT (Flash of Unstyled Text), where text is initially displayed using a default system font and then switched to the web font once the download is complete. The second is FOIT (Flash of Invisible Text), where text remains hidden until the web font has finished downloading and is then displayed. There are also several variations of these approaches, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. All of these methods are used as alternatives to mitigate the inherent issues associated with web fonts.
The second issue is licensing. Most web fonts currently in use are released under the OFL (Open Font License) and are free to use, while the use of commercial web fonts has not been widely activated. Web fonts are, by definition, used on the web—and using them on the web effectively means making them publicly accessible to anyone. The moment a commercial font is converted into a web font format (WOFF) and used, it means that the font itself—that is, the design information contained in the font file—is exposed on the web.
For this reason, when a specific commercial font is required, companies must pay a fee to the font foundry to purchase a web font license along with the font files. In general, font companies set higher prices for web fonts in consideration of the fact that the fonts will be publicly accessible online. Because it is difficult to use commercial fonts as web fonts under these conditions, the domestic web font environment* has yet to become fully active.
*The overseas web font market differs somewhat from the domestic one. In the case of Latin fonts, the number of characters is much smaller than that of Hangul fonts, resulting in smaller font file sizes and higher usability on the web. In addition, due to their long history, there is a wide selection of freely usable free fonts. When visiting well-known English-language websites, one can see a wide variety of web fonts used in accordance with each site’s design concept.
*Looking at English-language website examples, web fonts are often used without special security technologies. This may be due to different perceptions of licensing or the prevalence of litigation, but concerns about font leakage are rarely evident. The situation in Korea, however, is somewhat different. While positions may vary among font producers, creating a single Hangul font requires designing all 11,172 characters individually, which makes preventing font file leakage a critical concern. As a result, most font producers tend to be cautious about providing web font files that are publicly accessible.
A new web font technology optimized for Hangul
Sandoll set out to improve this domestic web font environment and create conditions in which fonts can be used on the web without restrictions. To this end, Sandoll explored solutions to address the issues discussed above. As a result, it developed technologies to optimize web font file sizes to resolve traffic issues, and security technologies to protect web fonts in order to address licensing concerns. Sandoll has been preparing to launch a new web font service starting in the second half of 2023.
*Sandoll applied for patents covering the lightweighting and security technologies used in its web font service, and received a patent registration decision from the Korean Intellectual Property Office in 2022. Sandoll’s web font service is a technology designed to minimize the time consumed by web font usage and improve website rendering speed.
*In 2023, as part of the process for overseas patent registration of its web font service technology, Sandoll filed an international patent application under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). As the Korean language has recently emerged as one of the most popular languages among young people worldwide, Sandoll plans to expand its web font service globally in step with the growing influence of Korean.
① Web font lightweighting
The web font service Sandoll is preparing is optimized for serving Hangul fonts, which are significantly larger in file size than Latin fonts. Web font files are similar to large image files on a website. In other words, the website may already be displayed in the browser, but certain elements—like images—appear later. To optimize this, just as image sizes are appropriately adjusted for the web, Sandoll’s web font service provides technology that optimizes web font file sizes to suit each website.
For example, a typical online news article uses an average of around 120 Hangul characters. Instead of delivering a font file containing all 11,172 characters to apply a web font to that article, a lightweight file containing only the approximately 120 characters actually used on the page is delivered. As the web font file becomes lighter, traffic is reduced, enabling faster web font delivery. If the font is applied to a short phrase of around 15 characters intended to draw attention, this efficiency becomes even more pronounced.
② Web font security technology
The Sandoll web font service* applies an authentication technology that restricts the use of web font files to only the domains specified by the user. This authentication technology prevents web fonts from being misused or copied onto other websites without authorization. Even if the script tag or CSS source used on a website with Sandoll web fonts applied is copied and inserted into the source code of a different domain, the font will not function properly. Simply put, if the domain is not one that has been specified by the user, the system blocks the delivery of the web font.
*To use Sandoll web fonts, users must enter the domain address of the website where the web font will be applied (or an IP address if a domain has not yet been set up). After completing a two-step process—entering the domain and selecting the desired font from the font list—users receive a script tag and CSS information that can be embedded into their website’s source code. By adding this script tag and CSS information to the source code of the website they operate, users can see previously plain text transformed into beautifully rendered web fonts. In this context, a website refers to one for which the user has administrative control over the site or server, or one built using website builders or blog services that allow HTML editing, such as Imweb, Cafe24, or Tistory.
Web font lightweighting and security technologies are expected to go beyond the limitations of existing web browsers and become a starting point that allows anyone to express themselves using a wider variety of fonts. Web fonts with Sandoll’s new technologies applied are currently available through a beta service. Script tags and CSS information are provided to enable easy use of web fonts, and any Sandoll Cloud member can apply web fonts to their own website. Through lightweight web font technology, users can experience faster web font performance. At present, the beta service offers only Sandoll’s brand fonts, but it is expected that a wider range of brand fonts available on Sandoll Cloud will be added in the near future.
*Sandoll Cloud web font beta service (Link)
Insight
Websites and Web Fonts
Websites are generally composed of a sequence of information in the form of text and images. Text is rendered on screen using fonts, and because the choice of font significantly influences the overall impression of a website, fonts can be considered a critical element in web design.
In the past, fonts could only be used on a website if the font files were installed on the user’s PC. Web fonts, however, are a technology that allows websites to use desired fonts without requiring installation on the user’s device. By using web fonts, designers can move beyond the limitations of relying solely on default fonts and create websites that more accurately reflect their design intent.
Operating systems such as Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android each come with different default fonts due to licensing issues. As a result, even when using system fonts, websites inevitably appeared differently depending on the user’s environment. The emergence of web fonts was an innovation that enabled a consistent user experience regardless of operating system or device.
The Reality of Web Fonts
In addition to the advantages mentioned above, web fonts offer several other benefits. They help maintain a website’s search competitiveness without the inconvenience of adding tags to related information, and they integrate easily with automatic translation features, making them well suited for globalization. However, despite these advantages, web fonts also present a few fundamental challenges.
The first issue is increased traffic. Font files contain design information for characters. In general, Latin fonts have relatively small character sets and therefore tend to be only several tens of kilobytes in size. Hangul fonts*, however, are much larger, ranging from several hundred kilobytes to over 10 MB depending on the design.
*For production efficiency, Hangul fonts have often been designed with only the most frequently used 2,350 to 2,780 characters. Web fonts, however, must include the full Hangul syllable set (11,172 characters), as it is impossible to predict how they will be used on a website.
When font files are converted into a web font format (WOFF) for use in web environments, file size is reduced by about 50%. Using a more recent format such as WOFF2 further reduces the size by an additional 30–50%. Even so, the file size of Hangul web fonts remains burdensome for use on the web.
Traffic issues that originate from web font file size naturally translate into website loading times. Because web fonts are one of the resources required to render a website, they take time to download. Although internet speeds continue to improve with technological advancement, users’ connection environments still vary greatly. Most people have experienced images appearing slightly later as a website loads. In the same way, text may also appear with a delay due to the time required to download web fonts.
Situations caused by web font download delays are generally handled by web browsers in two main ways. The first is FOUT (Flash of Unstyled Text), where text is initially displayed using a default system font and then switched to the web font once the download is complete. The second is FOIT (Flash of Invisible Text), where text remains hidden until the web font has finished downloading and is then displayed. There are also several variations of these approaches, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. All of these methods are used as alternatives to mitigate the inherent issues associated with web fonts.
The second issue is licensing. Most web fonts currently in use are released under the OFL (Open Font License) and are free to use, while the use of commercial web fonts has not been widely activated. Web fonts are, by definition, used on the web—and using them on the web effectively means making them publicly accessible to anyone. The moment a commercial font is converted into a web font format (WOFF) and used, it means that the font itself—that is, the design information contained in the font file—is exposed on the web.
For this reason, when a specific commercial font is required, companies must pay a fee to the font foundry to purchase a web font license along with the font files. In general, font companies set higher prices for web fonts in consideration of the fact that the fonts will be publicly accessible online. Because it is difficult to use commercial fonts as web fonts under these conditions, the domestic web font environment* has yet to become fully active.
*The overseas web font market differs somewhat from the domestic one. In the case of Latin fonts, the number of characters is much smaller than that of Hangul fonts, resulting in smaller font file sizes and higher usability on the web. In addition, due to their long history, there is a wide selection of freely usable free fonts. When visiting well-known English-language websites, one can see a wide variety of web fonts used in accordance with each site’s design concept.
*Looking at English-language website examples, web fonts are often used without special security technologies. This may be due to different perceptions of licensing or the prevalence of litigation, but concerns about font leakage are rarely evident. The situation in Korea, however, is somewhat different. While positions may vary among font producers, creating a single Hangul font requires designing all 11,172 characters individually, which makes preventing font file leakage a critical concern. As a result, most font producers tend to be cautious about providing web font files that are publicly accessible.
A new web font technology optimized for Hangul
Sandoll set out to improve this domestic web font environment and create conditions in which fonts can be used on the web without restrictions. To this end, Sandoll explored solutions to address the issues discussed above. As a result, it developed technologies to optimize web font file sizes to resolve traffic issues, and security technologies to protect web fonts in order to address licensing concerns. Sandoll has been preparing to launch a new web font service starting in the second half of 2023.
*Sandoll applied for patents covering the lightweighting and security technologies used in its web font service, and received a patent registration decision from the Korean Intellectual Property Office in 2022. Sandoll’s web font service is a technology designed to minimize the time consumed by web font usage and improve website rendering speed.
*In 2023, as part of the process for overseas patent registration of its web font service technology, Sandoll filed an international patent application under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). As the Korean language has recently emerged as one of the most popular languages among young people worldwide, Sandoll plans to expand its web font service globally in step with the growing influence of Korean.
① Web font lightweighting
The web font service Sandoll is preparing is optimized for serving Hangul fonts, which are significantly larger in file size than Latin fonts. Web font files are similar to large image files on a website. In other words, the website may already be displayed in the browser, but certain elements—like images—appear later. To optimize this, just as image sizes are appropriately adjusted for the web, Sandoll’s web font service provides technology that optimizes web font file sizes to suit each website.
For example, a typical online news article uses an average of around 120 Hangul characters. Instead of delivering a font file containing all 11,172 characters to apply a web font to that article, a lightweight file containing only the approximately 120 characters actually used on the page is delivered. As the web font file becomes lighter, traffic is reduced, enabling faster web font delivery. If the font is applied to a short phrase of around 15 characters intended to draw attention, this efficiency becomes even more pronounced.
② Web font security technology
The Sandoll web font service* applies an authentication technology that restricts the use of web font files to only the domains specified by the user. This authentication technology prevents web fonts from being misused or copied onto other websites without authorization. Even if the script tag or CSS source used on a website with Sandoll web fonts applied is copied and inserted into the source code of a different domain, the font will not function properly. Simply put, if the domain is not one that has been specified by the user, the system blocks the delivery of the web font.
*To use Sandoll web fonts, users must enter the domain address of the website where the web font will be applied (or an IP address if a domain has not yet been set up). After completing a two-step process—entering the domain and selecting the desired font from the font list—users receive a script tag and CSS information that can be embedded into their website’s source code. By adding this script tag and CSS information to the source code of the website they operate, users can see previously plain text transformed into beautifully rendered web fonts. In this context, a website refers to one for which the user has administrative control over the site or server, or one built using website builders or blog services that allow HTML editing, such as Imweb, Cafe24, or Tistory.
Web font lightweighting and security technologies are expected to go beyond the limitations of existing web browsers and become a starting point that allows anyone to express themselves using a wider variety of fonts. Web fonts with Sandoll’s new technologies applied are currently available through a beta service. Script tags and CSS information are provided to enable easy use of web fonts, and any Sandoll Cloud member can apply web fonts to their own website. Through lightweight web font technology, users can experience faster web font performance. At present, the beta service offers only Sandoll’s brand fonts, but it is expected that a wider range of brand fonts available on Sandoll Cloud will be added in the near future.
*Sandoll Cloud web font beta service (Link)