My dormant creative mindset had awakened back in late February-early March. And now, I’m soaking in as many types of creative methods as I can learn from. I started learning more about Procreate and its superpowers, the discovery of stamp brushes, the creation of my own brushes, and much more. Lately, I have started learning how to create fonts.
If you haven’t checked out my Goodies section yet, I launched my first set of handmade fonts called Sharpay Mark in otf format. I still have to learn more about how font files work, and I’m currently looking for a converter to convert otf/ttf files into woff 1, so that hobbyist web designers/devs can use them. 2
Back story of Sharpay Mark
I created this font using Fontself iPad app. I had a photoshop plugin version of Fontself, but unfortunately, the extension isn’t compatible on the iPad version of Photoshop, so I purchased the iPad app itself for about $15 on the Apple Store. I love how Fontself iPad has some gesture features similar to Procreate, so using it felt quite natural for me. There are some limitations with the iPad version compared to the extension, but I’ll get to that at a later time.
I named it Sharpay Mark because I copied (?) the specifications from Procreate with one of my brushes that emulate a Sharpie fine marker. I could use the marker name itself due to fair use, but I wanted to play around with the name a little bit, just like the whimsical names I’ve seen on other existing fonts. So, using my lifelong obsession with penmanship, I used my imaginary penmanship skills to write every letter, number, and the basic punctuations commonly used in the English language. Sharpay Mark was meant to be used as a heading font, rather than the text font, due to its thick bold lines.
I’m sure there are a lot of other fonts similar to Sharpay Mark. Sometimes, it’s impossible to have your very own personal penmanship 3 distinct from the rest of the world. But I can assure you that the Sharpay Mark is simply one of my personal handwriting styles. Yes, I have more than one handwriting style that I use that are quite distinct from each other that not very many people can tell that these different styles can be written by one person. This is just one of them😅
Because this is my first set of fonts that are released in public, this, of course, isn’t my best. This is why they’re offered for free. I have a history of handwriting and calligraphy arts since childhood, which is why I’m offering this set for free. I hope users stumbling upon my website can give these fonts a try and use them for their projects, as well as sharing a bit of time to critique the fonts as well. In that way, I’ll know what to do better next.
I’m aware of the different font styles, from the Extra light to the Ultra Bold, however, I mentioned before that the Fontself iPad (as well as Calligraphr) have limitations. Because of these limitations, I would have to figure out a way to create the original fonts as templates and rewrite them based on the brush thickness. In that way, the font style remains consistent to the original. I haven’t figured that out yet.
Conclusion
This is meant to be a short blog entry. I originally was going to write a long entry about my personal history with handwriting and calligraphy that got me to find some time to learn how to create fonts. I already had chances years ago, but life got in the way. At long last, one of my personal goals in life have finally come to reality!
There are a lot of font creator apps all over the place, but these are the two that I plan on using for the time being. Do check them out and let me know your thoughts!
Till next time!
Adri’s Font Creator Apps (for now)
Fontself – If you use Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop, you can buy them as extensions. I want something portable, so I bought the iPad app too.
Calligraphr – you don’t need a writing tablet or iPad to make them! Just print out the templates, use your hand to write your characters, scan them back and upload on Calligraphr.com, edit them, then convert them to fonts!
