I like blockiness.

And patterns.

And patterns that tile.

And tiles. 

Perhaps it is lack of motivation, or running out of ideas, or over abundance of streaming services, or the creeping up of age, or just plain laziness, but making new fonts gets harder and harder each day. And finish. 

Started this font on a whim on the phone while having my morning coffee. The first version of the uppercase letters was done in the time it took to finish drinking it. Worked on it off and on during the day. Was done by evening. The sample probably took longer than the making of the font.

Thanks, fontstruct.

It's called ajicis because it is built upon the letters done for the wallpaper of Wipeout 3 game team AG Sys. It has the same grid structure but the letters look nothing like the original.

Also, this FS'tion was started on the phone (because I was too lazy to get off the bed and go to the computer). When I saw potential in the created letters, it was saved and opened on the iPad. The rest of the fs was done there. The only thing that couldn't be done on the iPad was adjusting of a composite brick. (It was fixed on the laptop days later.) So, 98% iPad. 

@RobMeek: The iPad version worked well. However, Menu->Edit->Copy, Menu->Edit->Paste, etc. got tedious. Can we have the menu commands in icon form docked or floating somewhere on (in?) the tablet version? The icons can be half the size of the Tools icons to save space. Also, can the tools and zoom be docked as well on the tablet version? It would be helpful. Thanks. 

For reason lost in the mist of time, I wanted to do Cyrillic letters. Cyrillic text looks really cool written down, no? Maybe that was the reason. Who knows.

However, not knowing Russian at all, the nuances of the written script are unknown to me. Hopefully, I got at least some of the letters right. 

Further exploration of salvaging tm otw. Requires a lot of kerning...that will probably never happen. Holding of breath is ill advised.

An attempt at "holistic" version of tm otw. Failed attempt, more like. Oh well.

I love these kinds of fonts that have geometric puzzle-solving quality in the design. I was quite happy with how the lowercase found a way to be connected. Then I thought let me not mess with anything else. But a Z is so much like a 2, so I created the 2 out of the Z. Then when 2 was done, I was aprehensive of tackling the 1 because the vertical stem would be off by one brick, and how would that be resolved. Reluctantly I tried it...and it worked. 3 can be created from the B, but the B hasn't been created yet. OK, I guess I have to do the uppercase. A was easy. B was surpringly easy. Which gave me motivation to go on. And surprisingly soon, the whole thing came together. The hardest letters to shape were X and S. Not all letters are very successful, but they are distinctive enough to be recognized as themselves. Not sure about the =, but it will do, I suppose. In any case, no kerning required.

This font is a result of the thinking "The punctuation looks niiice. Should I do a font to match these?" on tm wto font.

The letters were allowed to be as wide as they wanted. A lot (when it became apparent that many versions will be necessary to get the right shape) of the earlier attempts at forming the letters are left in the font.

This should have been a minimum font, but minimum can't do color.

The idea was to simulate transparency. After trying out multiple color hatch patterns, it was apparent that it is not going to work. The earlier attempts are left in the font for you to judge yourself their efficacy.

The file is pretty heavy because of having so many anchor points (times 8 layers). Scrolling will be slow. Because the next letter overlapping the previous hides part of the black outline, just outline glyphs are there to stack two layers (colored below, outline above) to get the correct effect.

Is there some trick to make the downloaded font to work in color? The version I downloaded comes as *-svg.ttf. Aren't the color svg fonts in .otf format? Thus, no sample.

This font was initially done as a combination of CMYK colors. Although a lot of time was spent in creating that font, the vibrancy of the letters in a mixture of those colors was a garish nightmare which was difficult to look at. Hence, it is gone.

Still there's a font here somewhere. Hence this toned-down, Not (¬) CMYK version—all of the geometry, less of the disturbia.

PS: AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz0123456789!?@&*(){}[]|/\.,;:'"‘’“”«»<>-+=%|

Every possible permutation of the above glyphs generates 9,025 kerning pairs to be tested. I've only tested 2,994 kerning pairs. Then I lost steam. Whether I got them right or not is a whole another can of worms.

The design process is typical in its atypicality (yes, it is a word, or, at least, should be!).

The atypicality necessitates the telling of the story behind it.

Looking for something to do...something easy to do, I came across the font shown 5th from the top in this article on Dieline. "I can do this," thought I. I did a 2 that looked similar. Based on that, did the 3. 5 6 9. 0 8. 1 7. "Hmm." Add the horizontal stripes. 7. 4? "No." Re-4? "No. Another 4? Perhaps thinner sides?" "Even thinner." "Hmm." Redo 1 2 3 5 6 7 8 9. "Maybe this is better. OK, lets do the letters." Start with Z because it is almost a 2 with minor curve tweak. Do the S. B because 3 is done. A. V. C. E. F L. J. Etc.

The glyphs so far have a 3 horizontal band appearance. Do the lowercase. a is two bands. b is two bands...but how high should the ascender be? Also, the x-height seems wrong. Off somehow. "Can I do a 2 band uppercase with the letter slightly taller. Maybe 2 bricks taller?"

Redo A. Redo B. "No this B is not working." Redo B. Redo B. Redo B. "Hmm. Maybe." Redo C D. Redo E F L. "OK, this might work." Redo to all uppercase letters.

Do the lowercase. "Yes I like the new f." Redo other letters to include the flip. Most of the letters are the same width. "Maybe I can make this a mono-space font." Redo m. Redo M. W. V. "The A looks odd." Redo A. And so on.

The font may have started as a simple thing but it is very different now. "I'll just publish it." "No, I should at least do the basic punctuations." "No this hyphen is too thick." Redo. "Now it is too thin." Redo. "Now it is too wide. But this is mono-space font. The width cannot be altered." +. "That just looks weird." Redo +. Now the - looks off. Redo -. Now they both don't fit with the rest of the font. Redo + -. "No. I'll come back to them." Do [. "No that's too heavy top and bottom." Redo [.  Do (. "This needs a different curve." Redo (. "Can I use this new curve somewhere else?" Redo @. "Hmm." Do ©. Do ®. Do ™. Do “. "I can't make this so wide." Do ‘. "Definately cannot make it mono-space." Redo all punctuation to be their natural width. "This is no longer a mono-space font. Should I redo M m W w to be more natural?" Redo do m. "No this is too much work. I can't be bothered anymore. Let the m's and w's be."

"The punctuation looks niiice. Should I do a font to match these?"

Create New FontStruction

A 'do something easy' font.

An update of 2013's fs electronic

It's called Choices because this basic idea lead to numerous minor iterations that completely changed the character of the...er...characters. All the unused possibilites are now sitting dormant in another font. Perhaps they will become a full font (or three)...someday.

The thing about a square of the things that are about a square is that they don't tile as well as squares do. 

.

Shift+Letter and Shift+Numbers have holes in them.

Quarantine 2020 allowed for this fontstruction to be born as it provided forced free time.

I'm sure it's true for everyone who designs fonts, there were lots of artistic decisions made in the creation process. Some letters went through a lot of iterations to arrive at their current state. Almost the entire uppercase were designed one way, scrapped and then redesigned this way.

The future is screen. Super high-resolution screen. Resolution so high that it is indistinguishible from printed text. 4K screens are available on mobile devices now. The future is resolution independent then.

~Type an uppercase letter and type the corresponding (or some other) lowercase letter to fill in the shape.

You can use the uppercase letters to form one word and type the lowercase fill letters to form the same or another word, or fill with a blanking glyph to complete the letter with no center letter. So, two types of letters are possible with this one font.

The letters had to be designed such that the uppercase could read as a letter without a center fill on it's own, or filled with blank glyph, or with a center letter. In doing so, the font turned auto-stencil and auto-monospaced. Also, since the unfilled uppercase read as the correct letter with the hole in it, this fs can be said to have three fonts in it.

The gaps are 1/8 brick; the thickness of the inner letter strokes is 2/8 brick. Therefore, this limitation meant that the glyphs with a stroke in the horizontal center can either be lined up with the left side blocks or the right side one. Therefore, 3/8 brick thickness I and T are provided on { and }.

Letter couples are as follows: Aa  Bb  Cc  Dd  Ee  Ff  Gg  Hh  Ii or I{  Jj  Kk  Ll  Mm  Nn  Oo  Pp  Qq  Rr  Ss  Tt or T}  Uu  Vv  Ww  Xx  Yy  Zz

Number couples are: !1  @2  #3  $4  %5  ^6  &7  *8  (9  )0

Blanks: ~, space

Center blank: `

Pipe: = (which will offset the monospacing)

Others; ? is at ?/  ! is at |\

Punctuations are where they are supposed to be: .  ,  ;  :  '  "  ’  ”  ‘  “  -

Sample: Type the following in User Input to see the font as it is supposed to be:  A`AaB`BbC`CcD`DdE`EeF`FfG`GgH`HhI`IiI{J`JjK`KkL`LlM`MmN`NnO`OoP`PpQ`QqR`RrS`SsT`TtT}U`UuV`VvW`WwX`XxY`YyZ`Zz!`!1@`@2#`#3$`$4%`%5^`^6&`&7*`*8(`(9)`)0?`?/|`|\)-)+~_<>=

6 bricks tall.

The sample is a font pun: TWO in ONE.

PS: Not sure how future it is.

Constructed on the bones of fs minimal.

An older, previously unpublished fs, modified to try out the new arc bricks.

This font and tm Nibble started off as one. Both were different from what they have now become. The idea was to create a very heavy, minimal curves and angles to give a sense of the glyph.

It started with a plain N and a solid O. Making the E match either the N or the O resulted in deviation from the style just enough that it warranted a spin-off into a font of it's own. 

Some letters—such as G and H—proved quite difficult to match in the style of either. A slight angle shift resulted in a glyph that did not go with other glyphs. I kept trying different possibilities...and at some point decided to save the discarded option into another fs, which now contains more than 200 characters.

The teardrop counter in tm Byte forced a complete redraw of all glyphs at about 2× the size.

I am already working on two additional fonts that came out of this exercise...and it might yield more.

This font and tm Byte started off as one. Both were different from what they have now become. The idea was to create a very heavy, minimal curves and angles to give a sense of the glyph.

It started with a plain N and a solid O. Making the E match either the N or the O resulted in deviation from the style just enough that it warranted a spin-off into a font of it's own. 

Some letters—such as G and H—proved quite difficult to match in the style of either. A slight angle shift resulted in a glyph that did not go with other glyphs. I kept trying different possibilities...and at some point decided to save the discarded option into another fs, which now contains more than 200 characters.

The teardrop counter in tm Byte forced a complete redraw of all glyphs at about 2× the size.

I am already working on two additional fonts that came out of this exercise...and it might yield more.

This font started offline. It wasn't even supposed to be a font. I was just showing some students the value of a grid, even as tiny as 5×5 and the thousands of possibilities it generates. It led to making an 'a'. Of course, once that exercise was over, I had to continue making other letters. It's a compulsion. Sorry. The offline idea was slightly different. Compromises had to be made due to the limitation in place by the bricks available.

Make the letters any width desired.

Type the uppercase letter for the left half of the letter, type an extender (or not), then type the same lowercase letter for the right half of the letter. The more extenders are inserted between the left and the right halves, the wider the letter becomes.

I and T are the exceptions where the extenders are typed before and after the left and right halves and not inbetween.

The other exceptions are M and W which have been split into 3 and extenders are added between the left, middle and right thirds.

? is split between ? and /

Extenders are located at    @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) and _

How to extend:

A@@a, B##b, C$$c, D$$d, E##e, F%%f, G$$g, H^^h, &&Ii&&, J**j or J**$$j, K^^k, L**l, M(({((m, N((n, O$$o, P@@p, Q$$q, R%%r, S##s, (((Tt))), U**u, V**v, W**}**w, X^^x, Y^^y, Z__z, ?@@/