 |
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 Which
tools are your preferred ones to create fonts? And are you doing drawings
yourself? |
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| I begin in Paint Shop Pro. Some of my fonts are
hand drawn or mouse-drawn, and some are done from clip art, which I will
usually modify to my preference. After I render the initial image in PSP,
I take it into Fontographer and finish it up in there. I've also dabbled
in FontLab, and TypeTool, but all of my fonts to date have been generated
in Fontographer. |
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| There
are certain stations in a font designer's life - it starts with pure fun
and an enormous output, followed by a phase of learning more about font-making
and increasing quality standards and the desire to express something specific.
How is your experience with it? |
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| That has been exactly my experience…I have truly
been having the time of my life designing these fonts, and in the short
time I've been doing it, have produced nearly 40 of them. However, my hunger
for more knowledge and the desire to begin designing actual type, or text,
has given me the incentive to learn all I can about the different font-making
programs and font-making in general. |
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| You
are specialized in doing Letterbats and Dingbats. Do you plan to make text-fonts
as well? Or more Dingbats? You know we can never get enough of them ;-)
|
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| That is my ultimate goal, to make text fonts,
and I am slowly learning what I need to know in order to do so; however,
because of my love of graphics, my first love will always be in making Letterbats
and Dingbats, and I will never stop making them. I have several Dingbats
in the works now, and ideas for lots more. |
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Cloister Initials
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| Thoughts
about Letterbats - sometimes it seems we are missing the culture of ornamental
initials as they were used in Baroque and Victorian times (and before, of
course). That might be a reason why we enjoy the pictured letters. Any idea
how to cultivate the heritage of ornamented initials today? I have a foggy
concept that they should have less scrolls and flowers, but contemporary
symbols instead and a touch of abstraction. Maybe you have some ideas on
this? |
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| Although I believe traditional styles will always
be popular (as well they should), I also believe that the "ornaments" or
pictures of an ornamented initial should be kept to a minimum. Some of the
ones I've seen with lots of flowers and scrolls seem to be a bit overwhelming
and difficult to view, and can actually take away from the charm of both
the picture and the letter. I am a lover of the Victorian era, however,
so I believe that some of the styles of the past should be kept intact,
but with a bit less ornamentation. |
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