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Over the last eighteen months, the world of web fonts and web typography has absolutely exploded. Modern browsers — on the desktop and on mobile devices — are embracing the WOFF standard, type foundries are adopting web type en masse, and libraries like Google Web Fonts are making it easier for designers and developers of all stripes to use web type in their projects.

The rise of web fonts has coincided with a greater cultural recognition of type in general. The hugely popular documentary Helvetica introduced a brand new audience to the power of type. For users who want to learn more about type and web fonts, the web is full of great resources that offer good examples of typography and explore the history and future of lettering and design.

Here are eight of our favorite sites to help you start or enhance your own education in type.

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Fonts In Use is a beautiful site that, in its own words, aims to “catalog and examine real-world typography.”

A collaboration between Sam Berlow, Stephen Coles and Nick Sherman, the site offers insights and deep examinations of typography across various mediums.

This is a great site not just for typography fans, but also for those who want to learn more about what makes for effective typography and effective uses of type.

First launched in 2007, I Love Typography is the brainchild of John Boardley. The blog now has a host of contributors who highlight great fonts and showcase beautiful type, while also offering the reader a basic education in typography.

Through the years ILT has remained accessible to newcomers and that’s why we like it. Be sure to check out Boardley’s next project, Codex Magazine, which launches soon.

Typographica is a site that reviews typefaces and type books. It also offers commentary on fonts and various trends in typographic design.

The site isn’t updated on what we would call a “regular” basis, but the content within the site is timeless, making it a great place for type lovers to visit.

Typophile is a typographic community that has been on the web for nearly a decade. The forums are a fantastic resource for great finds in the world of type, and they’re also a great way to get proper feedback from other type lovers and design professionals.

Think of Typedia as the IMDb of typography — it’s a place where users can learn more about a typeface or font creator. Typedia also functions as a wiki, so anyone can join and add his own images, pages and information to the living, breathing typography tomb.

A must-subscribe-to section of the site is Type News, a weekly overview of the latest type news.

Webfonts.info is one of the best resources on the web for gathering information about web fonts and web font techniques.

Maintained by Raif Hermann (whose own blog is a must read for type lovers), the site manages to be comprehensive and up-to-date. It’s also a wiki, which means that others can add their own information and updates to the mix.

The FontFeed is FontShop’s daily feed of typographic goodness. The site is chock-full of type recommendations, font news and great examples of digital type in the real world.

One of our favorite sections of the site is Type Tips, which highlights tips and tutorials, while also showcasing interviews with big names in the type world.

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Fonts In Use is a beautiful site that, in its own words, aims to “catalog and examine real-world typography.”

A collaboration between Sam Berlow, Stephen Coles and Nick Sherman, the site offers insights and deep examinations of typography across various mediums.

This is a great site not just for typography fans, but also for those who want to learn more about what makes for effective typography and effective uses of type.

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First launched in 2007, I Love Typography is the brainchild of John Boardley. The blog now has a host of contributors who highlight great fonts and showcase beautiful type, while also offering the reader a basic education in typography.

Through the years ILT has remained accessible to newcomers and that’s why we like it. Be sure to check out Boardley’s next project, Codex Magazine, which launches soon.

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Typographica is a site that reviews typefaces and type books. It also offers commentary on fonts and various trends in typographic design.

The site isn’t updated on what we would call a “regular” basis, but the content within the site is timeless, making it a great place for type lovers to visit.

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Typophile is a typographic community that has been on the web for nearly a decade. The forums are a fantastic resource for great finds in the world of type, and they’re also a great way to get proper feedback from other type lovers and design professionals.

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Think of Typedia as the IMDb of typography — it’s a place where users can learn more about a typeface or font creator. Typedia also functions as a wiki, so anyone can join and add his own images, pages and information to the living, breathing typography tomb.

A must-subscribe-to section of the site is Type News, a weekly overview of the latest type news.

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Webfonts.info is one of the best resources on the web for gathering information about web fonts and web font techniques.

Maintained by Raif Hermann (whose own blog is a must read for type lovers), the site manages to be comprehensive and up-to-date. It’s also a wiki, which means that others can add their own information and updates to the mix.

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Tim Brown is the type manager at Typekit. He also is responsible for the fantastic font blog and resource, Nice Web Type.

The main Nice Web Type site offers a great collection of past notes and access to Brown’s blog, however, we encourage users to also visit the Nice Web Type Tumblr.

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The FontFeed is FontShop’s daily feed of typographic goodness. The site is chock-full of type recommendations, font news and great examples of digital type in the real world.

One of our favorite sections of the site is Type Tips, which highlights tips and tutorials, while also showcasing interviews with big names in the type world.

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The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Name: Lanyrd

Quick Pitch: Lanyrd helps you get more out of conferences.

Genius Idea: Via Twitter, track event sessions and keep up with favorite speakers — at all stages in the conference lifecycle.

Some newlywed couples work to produce an offspring on their honeymoon. Most don’t labor towards birthing a startup. But that’s exactly what British entrepreneurs Natalie Downe and Simon Willison did on their post-nuptial adventure. After traveling in Europe and Africa, the couple caught ill in Casablanca and extended their stay and booked an apartment to recover.

The pair have a shared love for building projects in their spare time — which is why, with all that extra time in a bedroom, they managed to create and release an early build of Lanyrd. Within two hours of its launch, Downe and Willison saw the site generate more than 14,000 visits.

After finding immediate success with social media denizens, the couple applied to Y Combinator’s accelerator program. Lanyrd was accepted and has since relocated to Mountain View, California to complete it. The site remains a largely bootstrapped effort, though the couple did accept the $150,000 in convertible debt offered up by Start Fund.

Willinson calls Lanyrd “the IMDb of conferences” — except that its content is crowdsourced. The site asks its users to do the heavy lifting for them by filling in the blanks on each conference: sessions, speakers and content. The incentive? The same as at any conference: self-aggrandizement. Organizers will go to any lengths to promote their events. Speakers want to flesh out their profiles by adding past, present and future engagements. And everyone wants to see useful conference content.

“Conferences are traditionally insufficient for transferring knowledge,” says Willinson. “Longer term, this is about capturing the value of what’s shared.”

Lanyrd’s tie-in with Twitter is ingenious — and almost spooky. Sign in with your Twitter handle, and you’ll automatically be greeted with a smorgasbord of contacts and upcoming conferences, drawn from your Twitter relationships. You may see that Lanyrd knows you spoke at a trade show last month, or that you’re on a panel this fall. The site already lists 6,000 crowdsourced conferences and 30,000 user profiles.

Downe and Willison opted to use Twitter’s social graph — rather than Facebook’s, say — because they believe the “follow” has more aspirational value than the “friend.” You likely already follow the people you’d like to know, the speakers you’d like to see talk. According to Lanyrd, you’ve already composed a list of the thought leaders you’d like to bump into at an upcoming conference. So Lanyard is well positioned to find the sessions of social relevance to you.

Since users are encouraged to add speakers and their Twitter names to sessions, the speaker need not be a Lanyrd user to have a Lanyrd presence. On signing up, you may notice your conference history has already been charted for you by your Twitter followers, organizers or fellow attendees.

Next up, Lanyrd has its sights set on South by Southwest, held in Austin next month. The startup launched its unofficial guide to the show Tuesday to help users find which sessions their Twitter friends are attending, and stay current on slides, videos and notes.

The SXSW tool marks Lanyrd’s first real test at a major conference. At worst, the event will provide a trove of data and real-world experiences that Downe and Willison can use to better determine how to serve users while they’re attending conferences.

Downe and Willison describe the chain of events following their June 2010 nuptials to their present day found status as an unexpected, whirlwind affair. Their story, and their startup, are still in their nascent stages. The couple will graduate from the Y Combinator program in March, and may be forced to return to the UK when their visas expire. But location may matter little to a startup that has successfully leveraged the power of an international hit like Twitter.

Image courtesy of SimonWillison.net

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.