John Hancock
May 14, 2004
The font worked well for the book but I was troubled by the fact that the point size is set by the height of the tallest letter, including descenders and ascenders. That meant I was also ways having to scale up the letters and that if I cranked down my leading, I would have letters from different lines bumping heads and tails.
Recently I decided to try a new one, based on my other style of handwriting, a printed uppercase face with slightly larger letters for caps. I wrote out the alphabet and all the punctuation and numbers, then copied out many surreal sentences like "You hope havoc and chaos will ebb when you tattoo a kiwi at the zoo" and "A yoga guru will hew the yucca with a hacksaw." I made a high res scan of all this palaver and emailed it to Alexander and a couple of weeks later, he sent me a link so I could download the font. Alexander also gave me a macro that runs in Microsoft Word to randomize my text. This useful feature takes all of the variations on a given letter that I have printed and randomly substitutes them in to my text. Instead of the same exact Y, for instance, it will insert one with a longer tail, an angled shaft, uneven tines, etc. This helps to give the font the little bit of chaos that makes for verisimilitude.
Jack immediately asked if I would load it onto his computer. I wonder why.
PS: About 50% of Everyday Matters, captions, some of the nuttier pages, is handlettered.
A record of my exploration into all aspects of drawing, illustrated journaling, creativity, and the inspiring aspects of art. By the author of "Everyday Matters," "The Creative License", and "An Illustrated Life" and other books.
Comments
I didn't know that SARK created a handwriting font. Hmm. Her newest book is in regular type and she said in it that it was in regular type because handwriting took too much time..? So now I'm somewhat confused.
Posted by: Luna | May 14, 2004 11:09 AM
Yeah, well, I examined the Bodacious Book of Succulence pretty darned closely and if it's not a font she has the most incredibly consistent handwriting on the planet. The color inserts are hand lettered, the rest, I'm pretty certain is a typeface. No disgrace in it.
Posted by: Danny | May 14, 2004 11:16 AM
Some years ago my son created a font from my hand printing and then wrote letters to his siblings that I loved him best and that their dad was augmenting his social security checks by flipping burgers at the local fast food restaurant. We received frantic phone calls the evening those letters arrived.
Posted by: jane H | May 14, 2004 05:54 PM
Great font story. I'm going to check out Walter's site. I had Fontographer at one time but it is no longer upgradable to OS X without rebuying it, practically. Excellent software for making your own. I might be able to still use it under classic, except the installation disks are all floppies ... how things change.
FWIW, I heard of another web resource - Fontifier - which will create fonts from your own handwriting via the web. You download a template, add your letters, scan and upload it, then you can preview the font before choosing to buy it. I haven't tried it yet but it's free to examine and only $10 if you like what you created.
Posted by: Karen Winters | May 15, 2004 12:02 PM
Your discussion of fonts reminded me that I wanted to order your book, which I did just now. I look forward to enjoying it!
Posted by: Denny | May 16, 2004 11:23 AM
looking at your entries, you draw collections of things (i.e. dildos, pens, etc.) and i'm surprised you haven't drawn a bunch of different trees.
Posted by: jeanette | May 17, 2004 08:58 PM
any chance you'd make your handwriting font available? i love good handwriting fonts.
Posted by: masukomi | May 21, 2004 01:21 AM