Slashdot Mirror
Make Your Own Fonts, In a Web Browser
Dekortage writes "Although it's been up for a few weeks, today is the official launch of FontStruct, a web-based font creation tool. That's right: in your web browser, you can build your own typeface, and download it as a TrueType font. The site's user agreement requires you to release your creations online under one of the Creative Commons licenses. The typefaces tend to be a little blocky, but it's still impressive (and a great way to pass time)."
There's no way a site like this could withstand heavy traffic. I don't know why the editors would sink it like this.
It will probably be dead for days now.
Who needs copyright? If you don't agree to the terms, they simply won't generate the font file for you. Just because they don't have copyright over the final result, it doesn't mean they are compelled to provide you with service.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
This is great. You no longer just have to waste time trying to find the font that is just right. Now, you can waste even more time by building it exactly the way you want.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
I think part of the reason for requiring the CC license is because as part of the site, your font shows up as a font that was recently created. In other words, by creating the font, you're submitting that user-created content to the community. If you're submitting it to the community, they require that it be released under a license where people can actually use the font.
(So, essentially, "if you don't like it, don't post" except that when you create, it posts automatically.)
But this being a web application (like gmail/calendar/docs) it only needs a dom based browser to have fun with (which is "everyone",more or less right?) and supports the most common font format on the planet by default, truetype .ttf
Metafont isn't like any of those easy requirements, it doesnt "just work" for "everyone", it could, but it doesn't, so it fails.
thats why not METAFONT
Indeed, indeed.
There's a reason that professionally designed, usability-centered type families cost hundreds of dollars -- they take many months of careful planning, experimentation (often through scientific trials), and adjustment to bring from concept to completion.
It is no more possible to quickly design a good typeface online than it is to quickly design a good CRM system and database backend using an easy online construction kit.
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
Apparently you don't know any graphic designers. After you use the same font about a thousand times, you get sick to all hell of it. Using the same font over and over again makes your work look repetetive, boring, and not as much fun as it should be. Using unique fonts can put some originality back in your work.
Of course, that mainly applies to display fonts. Text fonts are pretty limited in their design because they need to be legible.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Even if they had just said you can't make it here for free and then sell it for money on your own I'd feel better about that. That way my own font could remain my own.
So while it's a nice idea, couldn't they have been a little less heavy-handed about it?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Yes, as if MySpace wasn't ugly enough!
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
There's a troll if I ever read one.
A bad graphic designer puts the shiny above the usable. A good graphic designer recognizes when a bit of shiny actually enhances the results -- and for a designer and fonts, it may be that too many other people are using a font, so it no longer stands out. When WIRED Magazine launched, they made the then-fresh Myriad typeface popular, and Apple adopted it not long afterwards. Now it's everywhere (and is even the default chosen typeface in many Adobe apps). So what was fresh before, is boring and mundane now.
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