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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)."
Just what we need ... the ability for websites to easily create their own font, ignoring the hundreds of years that have gone into perfecting typography.
My font looks like a database connection error. :-(
-Peter
About 10 years ago, when pixel fonts were all the rage. If you didn't check the site out, it allows you to create fonts in a NxN grid, using predefined primitives (circles, stars, rounded corners, etc). Not a whole lot of variety possible. If they came up with a vector-based online font creation tool, that would be something I could get excited about.
Apparently you've never created a font before. It's not a process where you set a few parameters and cross your fingers. A proper type face has specially styled italics characters, not just skewed ones, proper kerning, different weights and sizes for captions and headlines, etc. OpenType has opened up the type world to many new alternative possibilities with swashes, stylistic alternatives, tabular and old-style lined numerals and a whole slew of other options for designers to take advantage of in their work. I just don't see metafont making the process of font creation any easier than say FontLab.
You must be new here...
Slashdot is now an experimental weapon to take over the intertubes. Its aim is to supplant even the biggest of botnets.
We are succeeding... one website at a time.
especially if you can make them really, really tiny but still 'legible' (often requiring context of nearby letters, granted). I made one - it's used in graphics and licensed by one party for print ('read the fineprint' takes on a whole new meaning when the font is baseline 3 pixels tall.)
Other than that, pixel fonts are still routinely used in games - simply because rendering a vector font is more expensive than rendering a sprite.
Spot the irony:
Bragador (1036480) to astrashe (7452): You must be new here...The state you are in while your HEAD is detached... - wait, what?
Hi. I'm part of the FontShop team responsible for FontStruct. We're down right now (for obvious reasons -- ouch!) or I'd link you directly to the FAQ page on licensing, but I'll try to clarify it here.
There is no requirement to license your work. New FontStructions are private by default and you can download it for yourself to your heart's content. Only when you choose to make it public do you need to select a CC license.