FONTastic

FONTastic

April 27th, 2009 @ 1:28 pm by Mrs. Gloss
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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 POSITIVE 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 work mates 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 Ms are different? There is an extra flourish on the ’r’ for “Mr.”, and the Ss 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 handwriting 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?

Tags: invitations, stationery |

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16 Responses to “FONTastic”

Bee

Miss Bruschetta (message) 5,565 posts, Bee Keeper

I’d never heard of Fonts for Peas — but it looks pretty awesome (and has a great name, I agree!). Thanks for sharing!

4/27/09 @ 1:32 pm (reply)

Member

MrsSl82be (message) 7,970 posts, Bee Keeper

Thanks for the site info, can’t beat free when your doing your own invites!

4/27/09 @ 1:37 pm (reply)

Hostess

Lillindy (message) 7,974 posts, Bee Keeper

I’ve used Fonts for Peas for many things and love them! They also turned my handwriting into a font. It’s not the best handwriting, but I just figured I would try it for fun since it’s free.

4/27/09 @ 1:49 pm (reply)

Member

emdash (message) 56 posts, Worker bee

I love Veer for all things. My cube neighbor got the above mailer, even though she’s never bought anything. I didn’t get one, despite purchasing all types of things for jobs. Boo! Jealousy! Fonts you purchase from foundries also tend to have fewer problems with the default kerning etc. so they are easier to use for non-typophiles. Although, not all have a lot of alternates or strange characters. Usually what you pay is what you get, and definitely check out the character list to look for those. The (good) suites with multiple weights can get pricey.

4/27/09 @ 1:56 pm (reply)

Bee

Miss Lamb (message) 970 posts, Busy bee

Would you mind telling us about how much a font like the one from Veer costs? Also, for a non-techie like me, is it easy to install in your Microsoft Office Suite and Photoshop?

4/27/09 @ 2:35 pm (reply)

Bee

Miss Gloss (message) 1,222 posts, Bumble bee

@spwingal: I think this one from Veer was around $100 - they definately vary though, since the Burgues font has so many alternate characters I think it is more pricey than usual.
Installing fonts is REALLY easy - if you are a PC user (sorry, I’m Mac illiterate) there is a ‘Fonts’ folder in the ‘Control Panel’ folder off the start menu. It’s as simple as dragging the font into the ‘font’ folder - and your done!

4/27/09 @ 2:42 pm (reply)

Bee

Miss French Bulldog (message) 7,730 posts, Bee Keeper

I’ve never heard of Font for Peas! That sounds really neat!
I usually download my fonts from FrontFreak, I’ll have to check those out

4/27/09 @ 2:43 pm (reply)

Bee

Mrs. Avocado (message) 1,543 posts, Bumble bee

I can’t believe she makes those fonts for free! Where do people get the time to do these things?

4/27/09 @ 3:07 pm (reply)

Guest

Amanda

This may be a dumb question but how to you choose open type options in MS Word? (i.e., letter A #2 instead of letter A #1) I bought Veer Feel Script (love!) but I haven’t really figured out how to use it yet. Thanks!

4/27/09 @ 3:10 pm (reply)

10.

Bee

Miss Gloss (message) 1,222 posts, Bumble bee

@Amanda: Hmm, not sure if there is any easy way to do it in word, in Illustrator there is an ‘Open Type’ menu. I think maybe you can open the Character Map (again these directions would be for a PC user) by going to ‘Start’, ‘Programs’, ‘Accessories’, ‘System Tools’ then select ‘Character Map’. If you choose your font from the pulldown menu you should be able to see all the different characters you can choose from. It’s definately not the most efficient way -
Anyone else have knowledge about OpenType and Word?
@Mrs. Avocado: No idea!

4/27/09 @ 3:17 pm (reply)

11.

Member

Mojito (message) 341 posts, Helper bee

I’m a fan of Fontspace.com. All of their fonts are free & they are super easy to install.

4/27/09 @ 3:36 pm (reply)

12.

Bee

Miss Ribbons (message) 2,018 posts, Buzzing bee

I use fontshop.com, but it’s a pay site. Its selection is truly overwhelming.

4/27/09 @ 4:06 pm (reply)

13.

Bee

Miss Ribbons (message) 2,018 posts, Buzzing bee

Oh, and I do want to note what I’ve noticed about most free fonts: they’re lacking characters. I downloaded a knock off of a font I wanted to buy and it was missing the ampersand, amid other things. So you can probably get by with a free font, but they’re definitely lacking the quality of a full font set.

4/27/09 @ 4:08 pm (reply)

14.