Help!
Folks, I need a little help. I am in need of a knitting font to use in my work for Knitty, and for my other tech editing work. I know about the Aire River font, and the one available from Knitter's, but those are intended for personal use. I need something I can use for commercial applications.
I'd like to just make my own, but I don't know what tools to use. I don't have Photoshop, and I can't afford to buy it just for this. I have Gimp on my Mac, perhaps I could use that? So far I've only used it to edit photos, I don't kow what the limits of its powers are.
Really, I don't know where to start with this. Please, if you have any advice for me, I'd be grateful for it.
Or, if you know of a knitting font package I could buy, please let me know. I've written to the person at Aire River to ask about buying that font, I'm not sure what she or he will say.
Thanks in advance...
posted by Mandy @ 3:06 a.m.
10 Comments:
Gah! I wish I could help! I have photoshop--but I'm completely clueless as to how to really use it. Good luck!
hi mandy
It's matt gardner. I have made a couple of typefaces, using a combination of photoshop, Illustrator 8 and Fontographer.
I don't know what Gimp is, but if you have been using it to edit photos then chances are it won't be able to make a typeface. Type is vector based, like flash, and photos are raster based. Also unfortunetly only a couple of programs are able to generate font file extensions.
I was just checking the Aire River site and it says you can use the font "professionally" whatever that means. I think the best bet is to buy the font or pay the royalties unless you want to make a unique face. Most conventional typefaces are around $40-90 US and once you own them you have unlimited usage. I don't know about the cost of Knitting fonts, sorry.
matt
Rachael is a photoshop guru!! Go bug her! Ply her with knitting or smelling yarn, shouldn't be a hard twist.
(I took graphics in college, but have no clue if I could help - let me know)
Hi Mandy,
I am a graphic designer (and a knitter) so have some experience in the font department…Matt has it exactly right, fonts are easy to find on line and as long as you make sure what you have is a vector based font, you are going to be a lot happier with it than anything you could make. Buying a properly designed font you love is a one time purchase and it's worth it.
Hey MANDY!
Its Tara, from your "My Own Little World" days of fashion shows at the Warehouse.
What a neat way to find you, via my mom...I need to find a way for us to get in touch, since i can't e-mail you here (i keep getting denied for some reason).
hope you're hand is getting better and better, and i'll find you soon,
tara
I have a program called Stich Motif Maker 3. I have all the fonts downloaded and all that. This program is easy peasy. I think I paid $49 for it though, so it's not cheap but it makes my life easier.
I used Photoshop when I was in college to create a font (it was an assignment) but it's been so long now that I can't remember if it turned out well or not... Hope you find what you're looking for!
I'm not sure how to create a font, but I don't think it's that bad. The one I use was made an 82 year old man in the Lacy Knitters Guild. The only problem is that cable symbols can be a bit difficult, and the font I'm using doesn't support cables. If you Google "how to create a font" there's a ton of info and some free software you can download to help you with it.
A lot of other knitters I know use Adobe Illustrator to make their knitting charts and schematics. I think that has a more professional look. I really need to learn Adobe Illustrator one of these days...
Maybe go ask Girl From Auntie? Her Rogue charts are very clear. She may be able to help you find what you're looking for.
My "fonts" are actually symbols in Adobe Illustrator--I build my charts symbol by symbol manually right now, but it's v. easy for me to make up new symbols on demand, and I can turn my symbols into bitmaps if necessary. In other words, I use vector-based graphics, which means that with the right software (which I don't have and doesn't seem to be worth buying just for this, when I have Illustrator and don't plan to memorize keystrokes or use a spreadsheet program to create charts since Illustrator can line them all up anyway) it could be turned into a font.
(I don't use a knitting font because I don't like Symbolcraft-style symbols, and I tend to want to make up new symbols that are not in the standard lexicon.)
If you want the .ai file, or a bitmapped export, let me know.
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