OcularInvasion.com

Letter Cult’s the Best of 2009

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Lettercult.com has released their list of The Best in Custom Letters 2009 and I’m proud to say I’m included! Three of my pieces made it in among work from some of my heroes. Check out the full list

I Love Typography writes about making a font

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ilovetypography.com has a really great write up on the years long process of making the Vesper type family. The article doesn’t get bogged down in the technical side of font building, rather it delves into the thought process of making a beautiful typeface.

read The Making of Vesper

Happy Holidays Process

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What originally started as an unused idea for a company holiday card became my Happy Holidays downloadable wallpaper. Here is a quick overview of the steps I took to create it.

1. Sketching

(left) I was tasked with creating the company holiday card so I set to sketching and jotting down ideas. Sketching can lead to surprises like an A becoming a santa hat. (right) This was my favorite since it was typography based. It didn’t quite fit the aesthetic of MAKE, so it wasn’t used.

2. Start Over

I was due to create another free goody for my site, so I turned to abandoned ideas from the MAKE card. Even though my first instinct was to work with sketch that I highlighted above, I started with another. I went with it because I thought it would be quick to put together and still be cool. I was wrong. The typography felt too much like a Star Trek themed holiday card so I ditched it. I kicked myself for not going with the better idea in the first place.

continue reading…

Happy Holidays Wallpaper

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I can’t believe it’s been almost a year since I last made a Free Goody for all of you. What better time than the holidays to give away something for free? The wallpaper can be downloaded in a number of sizes. I hope you enjoy it!

Download: 1920x1200 | 1680x1050 | 1440x900 | 1280x800 | iphone

Sleepyhead Font WIP

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Work in progress for a new display font.

What do y’all think?

Found Type

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I was watching Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog and saw this really sweet piece of type in the background.

Unfortunate/Fortunate Discovery

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To go along with A Rainbow Tale that I posted a little while back, I was developing a rainbow font. Here’s where I’m at so far

Obviously there are still some letters that aren’t quite solved. I did a quick internet search before I started and couldn’t anyone who had done something like it. Well, I was reading Grain Edit last night which led me to the site of designer Nick Dart. Lo and Behold, I found London based Nick Dart had created a rainbow font!

I concede that Nick’s font is tighter and he solved a lot of things I was still trying to work out. And it just feels more rainbow.
The fortunate part of this discovery is that Nick Dart is a really talented dude with some awesome logo types and print work. Check him out!

Form & Type by Toxi

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The cover for the August issue of Print is pretty unassuming until you read about the process behind it. It’s creation involved math, science, and a sweet 3D printer. This article covers some of the technical aspects involved and the article in Print goes more into the concept behind it.

Spachemen Preview

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Not sure how much longer it’ll take to complete. The fine art of kerning takes a while. Right now it has uppercase letters, punctuation, and a few currency symbols.

FontStruct – The Easy Way to Create Modular Fonts

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Fontstruct is an online font creation tool by Fontshop. Fontstruct uses a grid and a few basic tools and shapes to allow you to very easily create modular fonts. After you’re done, Fonstruct generates your creation in True Type format for either PC or Mac. You’re also able to share your ‘Fonstructions’ on the Fonstruct site, or through an embeddable widget.

When I first heard about this site, I was worried that Fonstruct would lead to the devolution of the art of type creation. I can images tons of fonts being cranked out that are all really similar. However, Fontstruct seems to be aware of this as they have a section right on the front page that highlights meticulously designed typefaces.

Fontstruct is still in beta and is free for anyone to signup. I’ll be trying to create a font before the month is through. If you create a font, let me know, I would love to see it!