I’m obsessed with fonts. One of the reasons I could never be a professional web designer is that I waste (um, invest?) hours and hours of time searching for just the right font for a site. I love fonts! Can you imagine how my obsession would reflect on an hourly-basis invoice? I’d have to charge a flat rate for font research.
Of course, I might not be as obsessive about choosing fonts for other people. Choosing for myself, though…it’s a sickness.
I can’t begin to describe how many fonts I browsed for my site re-design (accomplished in May 2008 or thereabouts). I narrowed down to about 20 over a period of 6 hours or so of browsing and testing (not kidding), then narrowed down again from there. I think I remember choosing my Cindy Procter-King name font from a short-short-short list of 3. I wound up buying 3-5 fonts and then kept playing with them until I made my decision.
One of the fonts I didn’t choose for this site, I wound up using on Penny’s site. But my work doesn’t stop there. Because I often like to have a secondary, complementary font (the font on my buttons, for instance). Choosing one font is bad enough. Choosing two = triple the obsession.
I’ve yet to use two of the fonts I purchased when I redesigned this site and built Penny’s. But I don’t mind. Sometimes I go into my Fonts folder and gaze at them longingly, spinning new web designs around them in my mind.
My favorite site for buying fonts is My Fonts (no, they didn’t pay or ask me to say this). The site is easy to navigate, and once you choose a font to test you can type your name or other wording into a window, click, then see what the font might look like on your site. Easy-peasy!
At Fontifier, you can upload a sample of your handwriting and create your own personalized font! I haven’t tried this myself. I have crappy handwriting and know better than to unleash it on the world. It’s the fault of the elementary school I attended. For reasons that are not clear to me, they decided not to teach a few grades of us cursive writing. Instead, we learned “script.” I do believe an exchange teacher from Australia foisted this experiment upon us. “Script” was supposed to look like beautiful calligraphy, but in the hands of 8- and 9-year-olds, it looks like printing with checkmarks on the end (serifs). The result was that, even as a teenager, I didn’t know how to write. I printed. I still mainly print (when I want someone to be able to read what I’m writing). And I’m all over the map. I do two different types of E’s (capital and lower case), depending on my mood. Same with S’s. And F’s (lower case only).
I did have to teach myself to cursive write when I opened a bank account as a teen and they wanted a signature. I remember going with a friend who “signed” her name like straight up and down printing with tick marks at the end of each letter—at the age of 15. Not for me!
I have the worst signature in the world. YOU try signing Cindy Procter-King over and over and over and over and see what it winds up looking like.
I could be a doctor.
I blame my two summers as a meter maid. I learned to sign Cindy Procter without really looking at the pad (I was too busy darting the glares of annoyed drivers).
I blame my children. Eldest Son was such a rambunctious toddler that I didn’t dare take my eyes off him while signing checks in the grocery store or the bank (young mothers don’t realize how easy they have it with debit cards—no signing!). So my cursive handwriting grew worse and worse.
Dare I say I’m the only one who can read it? (Curiously, my critique partners blame me).
If anyone tries the Fontifier, let me know how it turns out.
(Yes, I do believe they began teaching cursive writing at my elementary school again after I left…fat lot of good it did me).