Too Much Fun

I indicated that I will be updating this blog with posts showing off my own font creations that I have made.  I do love to blog, but as I have so little spare time, I find that I prefer to spend it designing logos, menus, websites and fonts.

I now have a long list of fonts that I am working on.  Once in a while, if truly inspired with a simple design, I can create a simple, basic font with a pretty full character set in just a day.  But then, I have to document it. I write about how I made the font, what may have inspired it, any little challenges on the way.  I then add an appropriate license, trying to get the wording right right so that it is clear and easily understood.  I also make a couple of graphics.  One with the full character set, one just as a preview of what the font is capable of doing.  After a few rewrites, and sometimes a few font edits after checking it out in Photoshop, I'm done, but packaging-up a font really adds a whole 'nother day to the process.  Then I can upload it to my Font-Journal.

Once it is available at Font-Journal, I have to check it out and make sure it displays, that at least most of the characters in the preview page actually display.  Then, I have to edit it and add a couple of links to the font info page.  Sometimes I can approve it before I edit its information, but usually I wait until everything looks good and then go ahead and approve it in my administration control panel so that everyone else can see it.

Supposedly, I should then announce it in a few places the next day (in a couple of Twitter feeds, other social networks  like Facebook, BeHance, LinkedIn, WordPress, Blogger) and then I am done for the moment.

The thing is that I would rather be creating stuff than promoting it.  So I'm not marketing my stuff much, because I have more fun creating it.

I also have lots of other stuff going on, mind you.  Right now I am trying to recover my wife's laptop, and trying to get my son to get his homework done.  So there are always little things keeping me from what I ant to do, what I should be doing.

There is the problem that not many believe in Me the way I do.  Oh well.

But, rather than have you all wait for a post about each font that I have made in the past year, I'll just give you the link to the fonts I have already uploaded to Font-Journal: 

http://www.font-journal.com/search.php?d=1&q=Doug+Peters

Don't get me wrong, I will get around to posting little preview articles about most of my decent fonts, anyway.  But I am have way too much fun creating these fonts at the moment.  And I am actually excited to get these out and available to the public.

My fonts aren't usually met with the warmest receptions, as I like some obviously quirky styles.  But hey, they are freeware TTF PC fonts.  Although the license varies from font to font, I generally try to keep them free for personal, public or commercial use.

With some fonts I allow others to make their own derivatives, and yet with some fonts I want to be the exclusive developer.  With some fonts I allow redistribution.  With other fonts my Font-Journal will be the exclusive font archive distribution center.

So, please read the associated ReadMe.txt and License.txt included with each font archive.  I will protect my  intellectual property and all my rights to it (as that's all an artist ever has).  After all, I want to keep creating more art, and for my art to spread and influence the world as it has Me.  I sure as heck don't want to spend my time in the courts (but I will if I have to).

So, just pay attention to the license and we will both be happier, ok?  ;)

Thanks!  (Back to having too muck fun!...) -Doug

Struck Freeware TTF Font

Struck is a freeware TrueType font for the PC I did.  The font Struck is Copyright 2013 Douglas Peters.

You are allowed to use the Struck font as-is for free for personal, professional and commercial use.  However, you may not modify, append or change the font other than porting the font over to another platform, such as the Macintosh.  No further distribution, or redistribution is allowed, as it is available officially from the author at:
http://www.font-journal.com/fonts/13104/struck.php

The only other online archive is intended for development purposes.

Struck was the second font that I had ever created.

This is a black sans serif minimalistic block font with a couple of repeating themes in the ends and such. I consider this freeware, but maintain my copyright and only allow distribution through FontStruct and my own journaled catalog of freeware fonts (@ font-journal.com).

Struck was created on Monday, the 22nd of July, 2013.

August 2-3, 2013:
Added the trade/service marks, TEL symbol, a few more currency signs and revamped many of the characters. The old K was cute, but I decided to opt with a style that would allow more consistent spacing.  I did make certain letters a bit more whimsical in an effort to keep that feeling.

I think this version has a more complete character set, but it is still kept basic to allow for fast downloads and low memory usage.  But if you are interested in seeing any particular character, or would like to see one corrected, get  a hold of me.  ;)

August 4th, 2013:
That small s was bothering Me all night at work.  It was the one thing I didn't get done right.  Taken care of, today.

Below is a simple example of the Struck character set:

The replacement characters exist as my logos (the joined DP, presented in the style of the font).

I hope it can be of use to some of you.  And again, I will consider requests for special characters.

My website:
http://www.Doug-Peters.com

My fonts portfolio:
http://www.font-journal.com/search.php?q=Doug+Peters

Contact me:
http://www.doug-peters.com/contact/
http://www.font-journal.com/contact.php

My business website (I sell the most competitively priced domains and hosting/servers on the net):
http://www.DomainHostmaster.com

Experimentation...

Over the past few years, things have become quite a challenge for me.  Back in 2008, the economy tanked and many stopped investing in new media marketing.  Most of those that did are doing well, now.  Everybody else is running to catch-up as the economy shifts back into high gear, again.

There had been less demand for my website design services and I took advantage of that to allow myself the ability to develop some of my own websites.  I even took a part time job to help with expenses and stay out of trouble.  But I feel that that decision has cost me a great deal.

Nevertheless, a couple of years ago I got hurt at my part time job.  That had me laying up for over a year and a half, tired and in pain.  I couldn't get much done, because I was still unloading trucks, still coming home tired, and on top of being so tired, I was in more and more pain.

After a year and a half, I finally received the surgery I needed and my hip is a lot better, now.  But I still experience pain (though now I have pain meds) and the clicking noise hasn't completely gone away.

This situation has made it ever increasingly hard to sit at a computer for long periods at a time, and in order to do some things that I enjoyed, like continuing to design, I have been experimenting with designing fonts.  For the most part, I find it a lot of fun, though it always seems that no one notices my work, as I am just getting started with this and have a lot to learn.

Right now I have been just trying to create a few unique fonts with my own take that might be useful for others.  I have also been checking out other people's fonts and changing them up, or adding a few characters that I think were needed.  But I am always playing with fonts that allow me to create derivatives of their their work and I always give the original artists credit.

But I have been playing and experimenting around with fonts for quite some time now.  And although I have made my works available to the public in one form or another (freeware or shareware), I haven't been promoting them very much.  So how would anyone know about them anyway, right?

So now I'm going to document my experimentation, and I'll probably start at near the beginning.  I probably won't post the few first fonts that I have done, as they were not noteworthy.  But I find that my hip is not doing as well as I thought it was, all of my old websites have been destroyed, and it is hard for me to stay at my computer for extended  lengths of time.  So working on fonts a little here and there is easy, where designing search optimized websites complete with both mobile and web oriented interfaces on a Content Manangement System such as MODx, PLD, WordPress or Typo3 takes great concentration and a lot of time to get them just right.

So, that's what I will be posting about for the next few days, documenting my successes in font making.  I hope someone will find some use out of what I have done.

Lately, I've been exploring a new font catalog... Hello Font.  They are specializing in Vector Fonts!  These are really ultra cool.  These fonts are the coming thing, right now.  I'm still trying to figure it out, but I want to make My own.  These Vector Fonts can be made pretty easily in a program such as Illustrator (if you know Illustrator), and I love Illustrator.

But I am still trying to get a handle on these Vector Fonts.  So, if you have any pointers or resources to share, please let Me know.  I can see that I have a lot of studying to do, but I am looking for all the recommendations I can get so that I don't have to wade through the junk.  ;)

New PC TrueType Free For Personal Use Serif Hand Printed Font at Font-Journal

Milton Serif Bled Medium: A Robust Hand Printed Serif  

I am pleased to announce the latest of My fonts: Milton Serif Bled Medium version 4 is a hand printed serif that allows an elegant sloppiness in typeface, as it tries to conform to the likes of serif print fonts in handwritten form.

Milton Serif Bled is free for personal use (not for commercial use without permission from the artist... Me).  No derivative works should be based on this font, but otherwise it can be redistributed in its original distribution archive form.

Milton Serif Bled has an extremely robust character set that should make the entire western world happy.  I have included characters specifically used by Czech, Duetsch, España, Français, Greek, Italiano, Polski, Scandinavia, Turkish, Cyrillic, Ligatures, Math and extra Punctuation.  Counting them by hand, I come up with over 400 unique characters (each letter, accent and puntuation mark is redrawn with no copy and paste between letters/accents/punctuation).  Greeks may get a little ticked because My logo replaces the Captal PHI, but the Cyrillic EF character is identical.  I'll fix that in the next release.

Take a look:

The original official distribution archive is available from Font-Journal at:
http://www.font-journal.com/fonts/13120/milton_serif_bled_medium_version_4.php

I hope that you will find it useful for your personal projects and use!  -Doug Peters

Create & Enhance Your Own Fonts, Free!

Due to unforeseen circumstances, I had to take a real hard look at My business.  The long and short of it is that as a web designer I only had a couple of the most recent sites that I have done in My portfolio, after over 14 years as a web designer.  I would design sites that the client would effectively ruin.  And once it was delivered, though proud of what I had managed to do despite the fact that they refused to listen to Me, they then managed to destroy it over time, or the business and website would go down, never to return (probably because they didn't listen to good, sound advice in the first place.  Then the economy slowed way down and our conservative Dakotans stopped investing or doing new advertising a couple different times, and I had to take other work twice.

After hurting myself at one of my so-called "part-time" jobs (tripping over a "safety feature" that is more dangerous than safe), most of My business was halted because I was either I was just too tired from unloading truck or just in too much pain to think.

But I have always wanted to design fonts.  For a couple of years now, I have been trying to run a Freeware PC TrueType Fonts website, Font-Journal.com.  The thing about designing a font is that although you can use valuable critiques from fellow peers as well as constructive criticism from the general public, no one is going to halt the project unless you do it their way.  No one is going to pick out the worst off all design mock-ups presented, because it's just you in charge, and you are responsible for your own work.  And you can be proud of it because you don't have an ass with no art education second guessing your every comment and over-riding your decision despite the logic.

I once worked on a website that was going to be the shining example of true optimized, best design practices using the industry standards of HTML5 and CSS3, and this guy took out all My code and put the presentation on tables! -Talk about CRAP Design!

There just isn't helping some idiots.  But the worst part is that he was a web design friend that fell behind the times and refused to trust Me.  Some friend.  Some designer!

I have been growing more and more tired of working for know-it-alls that think they know better when they are just hurting themselves, repeatedly, never learning, never advancing.

Then just lately, as I rest up My hip, I have found some great resources for anyone to design their own fonts, free of charge...

• Fonstruct
  Fontstruct is a fantastic resource that allows its registered users to create scalable modular TrueType PC fonts, as well as pixel based TTF fonts.  The font editor is known as the FontStructor and although a little limited, is an extremely versatile and capable tool.  With pointers from other Fontstructors, one can easily create masterpiece fonts (aka "fontstructions").  I am working on my best one yet, now.  Once I am done with that one I will clone it and change all the little things I noticed could be changed when it was already too late.  It's hard to believe that this tool is free, but so ultra-cool that it is.  Thanks, Rob Meek!  ;)
• MyScriptFont.com
  This one is a little gem that has been around a long time.  You print out a page of grid, hand draw your characters in their respective blocks (or cells), scan it @ 300dpi, upload the resulting image and it will use vectors to create a TrueType, OpenType or SVG Font of your characters for you.  Although I would like to see just a couple more characters, it does create a very usable font.  But I use this one to rope you in, because there is a more powerful such tool (Paint Font, listed next) that you can use to add any characters you choose.  
• PaintFont.com
  Paint Font is a masterful script that not only allows you to create fonts, but allows you to append or overwrite fonts with new characters, any character you can display through your keyboard, perhaps more (support for languages, ligatures, math and more only takes a click of the mouse).  Obviously, this is a very powerful tool meant to be used to allow artists the ability to update or revamp their own projects, so please don't use it with fonts that you are restricted from doing so by the license.  I personally only use it to create new fonts and refine older versions.  The resulting font can be configured as an OTF (OpenType Font) or TTF (TrueType Font)  file and the tool even supports embedding your own Copyright message.  I say use My Script Font on your crazy ideas and use Paint Font to really develop the ideas that work.
• FontPunk.com
  Font Punk is a really cool utility that allows you to play with your fonts by adding all sorts of effects to them.  Only the main unicode Latin letter sets are supported (Basic Latin, Supplement 1, and the Latin Extended Sets A & B).  But that pretty much covers the fonts of the western world, so it really is a great tool that will allow you to easily bold or lighten your font, randomly rotate or shake the characters, skew a font, turn a font into outlines, and more.  As you can see, you can take a font and come up with a bolder or italic version, or apply multiple, even all the effects... but watch out because there are some advanced ones like morph and add 3D effect.  This is also a powerful free tool.  

I plan to add more cool font tools as I find them, as well as announce My own font creations and highlight cool fonts.  For now, I hope this is enough to get you interested in the art of the font, and possibly started on some of your own creations.  It's always cool to hand a client a font used to produce his logo, perhaps with a version of his logo in it.

Happy font inspiring/creating/designing/fun!

-Doug Peters
Doug-Peters.com
@Font-Journal   @Fontstruct   @UserAlbum  @Behance
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