Oscraps

Every now and again, I will find something that my mom wrote and I will cling to it.  My mom had pretty nice handwriting and it is a little bit of a memory on paper for me.  I love that I have recipes written in my Grandma’s own writing too.  I’ve even seen people who have scanned in handwritten recipes from their family members and printed them on to dish towels for the kitchen.  It’s a little tie to the past that people love.  Just like smells can bring back memories, so can looking a someone’s own script.  I recently saw an article on how technology is killing handwriting, and I know that I choose typing over writing quite often.  But I started thinking about those little scraps of paper that I have from my mom and wondered what my own son will have in my hand later on.  So I ventured into a project that I first started investigating a few years ago and had never done….creating a font with my own handwriting.  It’s been such a long time, that I had lost the original links I had gathered on this.  So I turned to Google.  Here were the top three places I found online and how it worked.

Your Fonts

http://www.yourfonts.com/

Probably the biggest problem with YourFonts is that it costs $10. That’s a little steep for a font in my book – even if it is custom created. I had a lot of trouble staying in the prescribed lines when filling out the form. As a result of not staying well within those lines, I don’t like my O.  It’s too high up compared to the rest of the font.  I also had a lot of difficulty uploading my alpha.  I never quite figured out what the problem was, but it took me rescanning it and converting the image to get it right.  Here is what the template form looks like.

And here is how the font looks as a final product.  See how my “o” is off?

My Script Font

http://www.myscriptfont.com/

MyScriptFont is by far the best for a quick and easy to make font of your handwriting.  The template was easier to fill out and uploaded right away.  It took only a minute to generate my font….and best of all…it was free!  This is by far my choice for a quick and easy handwriting font, but it doesn’t allow for as many characters as the others do.  YourFont had an entire second page for special characters that might apply to other languages.  MyScriptFont only had the bottom of the template you see below.  So those of you who speak other languages may not find it complete enough.

And here is the finished font.  This really looks a lot like my handwriting.  More natural than the first sample.

 

Kevin and Amanda

http://kevinandamanda.com/fonts/fontsforpeas/how-to-get-your-handwriting-as-a-font/

I love Kevin and Amanda.  They have such cute fonts!  I am addicted to their handwriting fonts.  The nice thing about this one is that you can add doodles and other fun things.  It was by far the easiest one to do because you just write on a plain piece of paper.  You don’t fill out a template.  They also like fonts that are a combination of script & print which is what my normal handwriting looks like.  I make some letters cursive style and some print.  Sometimes they change depending on what letter connects to it before or after.  The downside to Kevin and Amanda is that it is not instant or guaranteed.  They won’t tell you if they’ve selected your sample to turn into a font.  They create the font and publish it with others on their website, but it looks like they’ve done batches roughly every six months…and there was just a batch at the beginning of June.  So I won’t know for a long time if they use my font.  So I don’t even have a sample to show you.  Here’s what my first version template looked like.  (I couldn’t find my scanned image, sorry for the quality!)

 

Tips

Here are a few tips that I learned along the way.

#1 – Practice.  I know that sounds funny, but when you go to fill out the template, you start feeling under pressure about how you make your letters.  If you want the most natural version of your font, you need to practice and “warm up”.  I found myself working with my best print letters on the first template I filled out.  Which would be great if I were teaching my son how to write…but not for a version of my own natural handwriting.  So sit down with a blank sheet and write some things out, I used the standard typesetters sentence: “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog” to practice all of the letters in the alphabet.

#2 – Read the directions.  I felt like one of my students.  I didn’t read the directions well before I started filling out the templates and had to redo two of them.  I didn’t do the Kevin and Amanda one in the right order the first time.  Then, I didn’t read the scanning/uploading directions and had to redo some things there.  So, read everything well before you start.

#3 – Relax and have fun with it; don’t over think it.  As I said, I found myself writing like a primary grade teacher when I started.  Which wasn’t really my natural handwriting and defeated the purpose of having my own style font.  Don’t think about it too much while you are working, so that it stays natural.

#4 – Try again.  Especially if you are using myscriptfont.com, feel free to try different versions and styles!  Maybe you want a print and a script font.  The more you try it, the more you will end up with a version you like.  And since it’s free…all it costs you is time!

 

Here’s a layout that I made using my own handwriting.

If you try one out, please link us up here so that we can see how it turns out!