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Post by BlueAndGold on Jan 26, 2020 15:22:11 GMT
Just curious if anyone knows of a quick trick to create custom fonts? (Or at least images of letters to position and re-use as needed.)
The Project: I have a book project I've been working on where I want to create the cover (Title, Author, etc.) with an artsy font where the letters have vines and flowers and / or little animals and things wrapped around / sitting on the various letters.
The Problem: [Laziness?] I don't want to have sit down with a sketchbook and pencil and eraser and pens and scanner, then trial-and-error through drawing each letter (or the whole cover, for that matter); but would like to do it on the computer and save each character as a font, or WordArt style for later use with other projects.
The Question: Is there a simple and intuitive (and inexpensive) drawing program out there that will allow me to quickly do this kind of art and save it as a font? Perhaps just as a series of separate PNG's or Bitmaps would suffice.
The tools I have on hand now are pretty much MSWord drawing utility (which is cumbersome), MSPaint (which is effective in a pinch but limited in power and won't store as a font set) and LViewPro which is powerful as an image manipulator but not that intuitive nor useful for drawing objects.
Thoughts, anyone?
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Jan 26, 2020 18:46:34 GMT
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Post by benziger on Jan 27, 2020 0:02:52 GMT
and for the painting work, I use usuall the open source version of Photoshop: www.gimp.org
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Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2020 4:24:42 GMT
My favourite is Paint Shop Pro. An excellent programme.
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Post by ronmiller on Jan 28, 2020 13:23:39 GMT
Most everyone's advice is correct. You don't really need to create an entirely new typeface...just the word(s) that comprise the title of the book you are working on. But even given that, I don't think there are any real shortcuts, unless you were take an existing face that comes closest to what you need and then adapting those letters you need for your title (as I did in the examples below). I wouldn't overworry about being able to use the type for later projects, unless they are related to the current one and you want consistency in the titles for the sake of branding. Otherwise, just focus on what you need for the present project. My brother has done a lot of typography in the past... atomicart.com/designtypography...some of those examples were done from scratch by hand (and by from scratch I mean in pen and ink), while most of the others were done in Illustrator and similar vector-based drawing programs (not paint programs like Photoshop or Painter). In every instance, he didn't need to create a brand-new typeface for each project. I have used some of the tools in Photoshop to specially adapt the appearance of a book's title once I have created it using an existing face. In the following examples, the extensions to the F and N in Knife Children was done by hand after rasterizing the type so it could be edited like art. The F and M in Freedom were also done by manually adapting the letters after the fact.
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Post by ronmiller on Jan 28, 2020 13:25:24 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jan 29, 2020 11:27:17 GMT
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Post by ronmiller on Jan 29, 2020 13:01:33 GMT
Yeah. Lois' literary agency put out the Kindle edition. Awful, isn't it?
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Post by Deleted on Jan 29, 2020 13:08:59 GMT
Ron, I knew it wasn't one of yours. They don't bother with the kindle editions. I take as much trouble for my kindles as my print books.I was thinking of buying Knife Children and I've downloaded a sample. I hadn't realised it was part of a series. I see your style in some of the others in the series. You really have some excellent authors you design covers for. We are lucky to have you here and helping us. Hopefully this forum will continue. I had to put my pictures on hold as I've come down with the flu. Hopefully it's on the way out and I can continue making my books. I was stuck on my third in my series of Stolen but with help from Blue I will be able to carry on soon.
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Post by ronmiller on Jan 29, 2020 15:06:12 GMT
Ron, I knew it wasn't one of yours. They don't bother with the kindle editions. I take as much trouble for my kindles as my print books.I was thinking of buying Knife Children and I've downloaded a sample. I hadn't realised it was part of a series. I see your style in some of the others in the series. You really have some excellent authors you design covers for. We are lucky to have you here and helping us. Hopefully this forum will continue. I had to put my pictures on hold as I've come down with the flu. Hopefully it's on the way out and I can continue making my books. I was stuck on my third in my series of Stolen but with help from Blue I will be able to carry on soon. In Lois' case it is someone I have known for half a century. We once belonged to the same science fiction fan club. After she married, she started writing science fiction novels. Her first book was not only accepted by the publisher, she got a five-book contract. She has now won seven Hugo Awards (more than either Robert Heinlein or Arthur C. Clarke) and three Nebula Awards. I started doing ebook covers for her a few years ago when she grew frustrated with the many godawful covers she had been getting. And she was getting tired of hearing complaints from her fans about every detail that was gotten wrong (her readers will count the buttons on a uniform). While I normally don't approve of authors getting directly involved in their covers (the lack of objectivity is almost always a headache), Lois has been great. While she likes getting her characters depicted correctly, she also understands what the real purpose of a cover is, so she will listen to me, too. The first series of book covers I did for her was done explicitly to frustrate her pickiest fans. We went with a highly graphic, stylized, minimalist look that contained no details at all! I think you will enjoy her books very much! Sorry to hear you're down with the flu! I hope you're feeling better soon!
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Post by Deleted on Jan 29, 2020 16:53:39 GMT
What is the saying “He who can does; he who cannot, teaches.” Well I can do some painting and drawing and even a little writing but I could never have started a business like yours Ron. That's why I became a teacher. I even played the guitar and sang a little and these skills were very helpful in my teaching. I remember one class of 6 year olds being very impressed by my simple rendition of "Old Macdonald had a Farm" on my guitar. They also loved the pictures I drew on the board for them. So my skills were useful for teaching but not good enough to work in the field of art or design. My friend was brilliant at art and she went into advertising but she hated it! I really enjoyed my teaching, especially working with the little ones.(I finished my career as an Advisory Teacher, so worked with children of all ages.) Sphinx-Cameron I probably would find it hard to handle your little children nowadays, but when I was younger I'm sure I would have found them delightful.
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Jan 29, 2020 17:35:10 GMT
The times I read Bujold's books I found them engaging, but that was back when I could afford to buy books just to read. These days on a near to poverty-line budget the focus is on educational materials for the kids.
The only time I interacted with Bujold [via email] I asked if she might know an agent willing to take on a speculative-fiction writer. The response I received dissuaded me from further contact.
Which is okay, I gave up on my work having much if any reach or audience after enough rejection letters. Some days it takes a lot of effort to not delete unfinished work [roughly three dozen at this point] that even if finished, nobody will take much if any interest in.
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Post by ronmiller on Jan 29, 2020 18:10:07 GMT
The times I read Bujold's books I found them engaging, but that was back when I could afford to buy books just to read. These days on a near to poverty-line budget the focus is on educational materials for the kids. The only time I interacted with Bujold [via email] I asked if she might know an agent willing to take on a speculative-fiction writer. The response I received dissuaded me from further contact. Which is okay, I gave up on my work having much if any reach or audience after enough rejection letters. Some days it takes a lot of effort to not delete unfinished work [roughly three dozen at this point] that even if finished, nobody will take much if any interest in. Yeah...Lois isn't much on giving advice. In case you still want to know, her agency is Spectrum www.spectrumliteraryagency.com/That being said, a lot of authors probably would have demurred since agents get inundated with submissions already and unless an author knows you and your work, they would probably not be too willing to give out contact information. Just for the sake of anyone else reading these posts, I would highly recommend the Writer's Market guide to literary agents for those interested in finding one.
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Post by ronmiller on Jan 29, 2020 18:12:05 GMT
What is the saying “He who can does; he who cannot, teaches.” Well I can do some painting and drawing and even a little writing but I could never have started a business like yours Ron. That's why I became a teacher. I even played the guitar and sang a little and these skills were very helpful in my teaching. I remember one class of 6 year olds being very impressed by my simple rendition of "Old Macdonald had a Farm" on my guitar. They also loved the pictures I drew on the board for them. So my skills were useful for teaching but not good enough to work in the field of art or design. My friend was brilliant at art and she went into advertising but she hated it! I really enjoyed my teaching, especially working with the little ones.(I finished my career as an Advisory Teacher, so worked with children of all ages.) Sphinx-Cameron I probably would find it hard to handle your little children nowadays, but when I was younger I'm sure I would have found them delightful. Teachers are the best...and a good teacher needs as much talent as any writer or artist.
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Jan 29, 2020 19:56:45 GMT
Yeah...Lois isn't much on giving advice. In case you still want to know, her agency is Spectrum www.spectrumliteraryagency.com/That being said, a lot of authors probably would have demurred since agents get inundated with submissions already and unless an author knows you and your work, they would probably not be too willing to give out contact information. Just for the sake of anyone else reading these posts, I would highly recommend the Writer's Market guide to literary agents for those interested in finding one. I can understand authors demurring on an unknown, and truth be told enough agents and publishers have essentially done the same it's become painfully obvious my work doesn't have whatever 'Wow' quality it takes to get a foot in the door. Even if an agent or publisher were to take an interest now, it's a bit late.
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