26.4.09

FONTastic

I’ve had a lot of questions in the comments sections of my posts regarding fonts, specifically the ‘handwriting fonts’ – so I figured I would do a post about fonts in general-

The majority of the time I get most of my fonts from either : dafont.com or 1001freefonts.com (both are free, for the bee on a budget).

But, I’ve also splurged on some fonts from Veer, namely the Burgues Script (so elegant!). I bought it because I was POSITVE we were going to use it on our invitation suite – now I’m not so sure, but I still love it!! Plus when you purchase something from VEER they put you on their mailing list and you get THE COOLEST mailers ever! It literally makes my day when I get something from them in the mail, my favorite has been a “Desktop Attendant for Absent Creatives”.

“Sometimes you have to get away. This collection of excuses, alibis, and reasons-why will let your workmates know where and/or why you’ve gone.”

Anyways, back to the font talk.

When you purchase a quality font from a foundry, you get all the open-type options, meaning there are different variations on each letter so you can get them to flow smoothly. For the 'a' character in the Burgues script there are 5 different characters that the open type menu will allow you to choose from:

Playing with these options allows you create diversity within your text using the same letters, so you get a varied script similar to if you had hired an actual calligrapher to pen the text.

Notice how the M's are different? There is an extra flourish on the 'r' for Mr. The s's are different too -

The Handwriting fonts I’ve used both here and here came from Fonts for Peas. Fonts for Peas is a unique website where you can send in a sample of your own handwriting and they will turn it into a font for you…for free! I haven’t turned my own hand into a font yet because I have found so many others listed on their website that are so much more interesting than my own. There are other websites that use a similar concept and you can download their fonts for free as well, but I’ve stuck with “Fonts for Peas” because I like the name :)

Where are your favorite places to get fonts?

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