About the project

About sIFR Beauty
sIFR Beauty demonstrates the beauty and the accessibility of sIFR (Scalable Inman Flash Replacement). Maintained and updated by Vitaly Friedman, it includes a library of license -free fonts (CSS-Zen -Garden -kind-of-library), implemented in .swf format for further use with the sIFR technique. Besides, sIFR Beauty provides the information about sIFR Resources and presents its delightful examples in the sIFR Showcase.
How did it begin?
Have you ever had this feeling when you just look out of the window, throw a glance at something very familiar and begin to wonder how such simple, almost elementary things turned out to be so beautiful and irresistible? The girl's boundless happiness, a slow fall of a green leaf, an unexpected gust of a strong wind... You let fascinate yourself, being impressed by something you've seen eventually, but haven't actually observed.
After reading Mike Davidson's first article on sIFR, I've implemented sIFR in some of the web-sites I was working on. The idea of styling the headings, pullquotes, paragraphs or text blocks with any font - without the users having it installed on their PC, has completely changed my idea of presenting the information on the Web. Gradually I realized, how a simple Flash replacement can completely change - improve - the appearance of a page and reaching the potential clientele.
First of all, from now on web-developers was becoming able to realize one of the clients' most wanted wishes: to tie the company's official signature (i.e. logotype) with the presentation of a page - in order to make the company's logotype more recognizable. Secondly, the used font could now be adjusted to the content of the page, making it possible to use "serious" fonts for a solid business web-site and "less serious" typefaces for the entertaining web-sites. Thirdly, the necessity of using images for presenting "special" information (i.e. eye-catching headings) was replaced by a small Javascript which transforms the content of the page in a needed presentation form dynamically.
Gradually learning the possibilities sIFR offers, I just waited for an opportunity to create a CSS Zen Garden-kind-of-page, which would demonstrate the beauty of the sIFR technique and provide the information about it. Consequently, a catalog of sIFR Resources as well as sIFR Showcase were born. As Chris Heilmann has created the CSS Table Gallery and kindly presented the source code of his brilliant project, I stocked up on the inspiration, creativity and coffee supplies, took a deep breath and spent three looong nights creating sIFR Beauty.
What does a red latern stand for?
I've been receiving this question several times now. It stands for whatever you want it to stand. Creativity, inspiration, beauty. For me it stands for a new "light" in web-development, more possibilities, more space for creativity and inspiration and non-standard text presentation.
Any questions? Feel free to ask.