It seems as though the use of custom fonts on webpages is becoming increasingly common. With services like TypeKit, there is a also an increasing selection of high-quality fonts to work with.
I'm wondering: Has anyone started building sites that use @font-face fonts exclusively? (Can I finally get rid of Verdana / arial and swap in Myriad?) Or is it still too soon?
Thnx,
I just recently built a website for a client that uses custom fonts (I can't show you because it's not public yet). There is really no reason not to, honestly. @font-face degrades gracefully for browsers/devices that don't support it, and there are very few real downsides to it.
However, the problem with @font-face is that you can't just slap any font onto your website. To build on your example, you would not be able to use Myriad Pro with @font-face because its license does not allow it. Fonts have to specifically allow direct linking in their licenses in order for you to be able to use them on your website. So it isn't as simple as picking any font and using it.
There are still some good free fonts out there, though--check out Font Squirrel and the Google Font API. If you'd specifically like to use a commercial font such as Myriad Pro on your website, you can use another tool such as sIFR.