A really nice thing about Google’s web font project is the usage statistics that are visible for all the available fonts. For instance, let’s take a look at the numbers on Copse, the single-weight design I contributed last month:
I’m not entirely sure of all the factors that go into the font’s “trending” or “popularity” rankings (which I imagine strip out the unusual spike from a couple of weeks ago), but I’m pretty pleased with the big figure: over a million uses of Copse in the last 30 days! That’s pretty…well, wow. I would love to actually see some sites that are using it, because I know this one doesn’t get traffic like that. A big thanks to everyone in Brazil, by the way — whoever you are!
And now Google has added a new feature that changes my little experiment a bit: they’ve added the ability for users to donate a payment of their choice for using a font. (See the download link on any font’s page.) So now my free font might lead to some royalties, of a kind. That’s no a bad thing at all. Click away!
