Over the past few years, English has become the preferred online language, even by Hebrew speakers. Many Israeli websites are designed in English and don't even bother including a Hebrew version, not to mention apps and mobile devices where Hebrew is scarcely seen. There is no doubt that globalization and the dominance of English online inevitably takes a dominant part of our internet experience, however, there are other aspects to this issue that we are able to address and perhaps even have an influence on.

Producing a clear and legible text for the screen is a result of multiple parameters, including the design of the characters themselves, their structure, various sequences, and most importantly, their appearance in small sizes for digital display. All this is almost completely neglected when designing web-fonts in the Hebrew language.

While in Europe and the USA web-fonts have been in development for years, the variety in Hebrew remains very limited. Despite the great potential, this reality has left designers many

times with no choice but to use Arial as their default font, limiting designers and various digital needs. Moreover, the design for the Hebrew version of Arial was inspired by the font "Narkis Neue" as an attempt to serve as an equivalent to the Latin version of Arial, which was developed itself as a poor interpretation of the modern san-serif font "Helvetica".

Over the past year (since the release of the Firefox 3.6 browser) since the implementation of the @font-face standard in all of the popular browsers. @fontface allows emebbing of any font to a web page, similar to they way images are embedded. These new standards opened a wide range of possibilities for web developers, designers and end-users, allowing them to expand the use of web-fonts beyond the proprietary selection of fonts embedded in operating systems. This expansion has been regarded extensively around the world, and can be seen on various online typographic services such as typekit.com, open-source font libraries such as Google Font Library, and throughout the vast range of state-of-the-art typography growing on and for the web.

Having said that, endorsing these standards hasn't resolved the entire problem. In order to use a font for the purpose of reading text, the font must be made compatible for the screen, otherwise the appearance on computer displays will be blurry and illegible.

There is demand for authentic Hebrew fonts that can promise a high level of legibility while commemorating the strong heritage of design for the Hebrew letter, along with the high standards set for designing web-fonts (especially in small sizes). It is crucial to allow open use for these fonts, allowing them to be accessible to all, and to create a technical and professional foundation for web developers and designers to design additional web-fonts for the Hebrew language.

Over the past few years, English has become the preferred online language, even by Hebrew speakers. Many Israeli websites are designed in English and don't even bother including a Hebrew version, not to mention apps and mobile devices where Hebrew is scarcely seen. There is no doubt that globalization and the dominance of English online inevitably takes a dominant part of our internet experience, however, there are other aspects to this issue that we are able to address and perhaps even have an influence on.

Producing a clear and legible text for the screen is a result of multiple parameters, including the design of the characters themselves, their structure, various sequences, and most importantly, their appearance in small sizes for digital display. All this is almost completely neglected when designing web-fonts in the Hebrew language.

While in Europe and the USA web-fonts have been in development for years, the variety in Hebrew remains very limited. Despite the great potential, this reality has left designers many times with no choice but to use Arial as their default font, limiting designers and various digital needs. Moreover, the design for the Hebrew version of Arial was inspired by the font "Narkis Neue" as an attempt to serve as an equivalent to the Latin version of Arial, which was developed itself as a poor interpretation of the modern san-serif font "Helvetica".

Over the past year (since the release of the Firefox 3.6 browser) since the implementation of the @font-face standard in all of the popular browsers. @fontface allows emebbing of any font to a web page, similar to they way images are embedded. These new standards opened a wide range of possibilities for web developers, designers and end-users,

allowing them to expand the use of web-fonts beyond the proprietary selection of fonts embedded in operating systems. This expansion has been regarded extensively around the world, and can be seen on various online typographic services such as typekit.com, open-source font libraries such as Google Font Library, and throughout the vast range of state-of-the-art typography growing on and for the web.

Having said that, endorsing these standards hasn't resolved the entire problem. In order to use a font for the purpose of reading text, the font must be made compatible for the screen, otherwise the appearance on computer displays will be blurry and illegible.

There is demand for authentic Hebrew fonts that can promise a high level of legibility while commemorating the strong heritage of design for the Hebrew letter,

along with the high standards set for designing web-fonts (especially in small sizes). It is crucial to allow open use for these fonts, allowing them to be accessible to all, and to create a technical and professional foundation for web developers and designers to design additional web-fonts for the Hebrew language.

Over the past few years, English has become the preferred online language, even by Hebrew speakers. Many Israeli websites are designed in English and don't even bother including a Hebrew version, not to mention apps and mobile devices where Hebrew is scarcely seen. There is no doubt that globalization and the dominance of English online inevitably takes a dominant part of our internet experience, however, there are other aspects to this issue that we are able to address and perhaps even have an influence on.

Producing a clear and legible text for the screen is a result of multiple parameters, including the design of the characters themselves, their structure, various sequences,

and most importantly, their appearance in small sizes for digital display. All this is almost completely neglected when designing web-fonts in the Hebrew language.

While in Europe and the USA web-fonts have been in development for years, the variety in Hebrew remains very limited. Despite the great potential, this reality has left designers many times with no choice but to use Arial as their default font, limiting designers and various digital needs. Moreover, the design for the Hebrew version of Arial was inspired by the font "Narkis Neue" as an attempt to serve as an equivalent to the Latin version of Arial, which was developed itself as a poor interpretation of the modern san-serif font "Helvetica".

Over the past year (since the release of the Firefox 3.6 browser) since the implementation of the @font-face standard in all of the popular browsers. @fontface allows embedding of any font to a web page, similar to they way images are embedded. These new standards opened a wide range of possibilities for web developers, designers and end-users, allowing them to expand the use of web-fonts beyond the proprietary selection of fonts embedded in operating systems. This expansion has been regarded extensively around the world, and can be seen on various online typographic services such as typekit.com, open-source font libraries such as Google Font Library, and throughout the vast range of state-of-the-art typography growing on and for the web.

Having said that, endorsing these standards hasn't resolved the entire problem. In order to use a font for the purpose of reading text, the font must be made compatible for the screen, otherwise the appearance on computer displays will be blurry and illegible.

There is demand for authentic Hebrew fonts that can promise a high level of legibility while commemorating the strong heritage of design for the Hebrew letter, along with the high standards set for designing web-fonts (especially in small sizes).

It is crucial to allow open use for these fonts, allowing them to be accessible to all, and to create a technical and professional foundation for web developers and designers to design additional web-fonts for the Hebrew language.