Hello, and welcome to the Bee’s Knees, the weekly special focusing on some of the many creative ways words and pictures can be combined! This week we’re going to take a look at typefaces, and of the some beautiful ways that people have succeeded in making every day ABC’s into a piece of art.
Calligraphy goes back to the Middle Ages, but though it is undeniably beautiful, it takes a long time to learn and to do it well. One of the advantages to living in the age of computers is that anyone can make a piece of writing look good by simply scrolling down a word processor’s list of fonts. From the easy to read Times New Roman to the barely decipherable Edwardian script, there is a font for every occasion. Several artists like to take this a step further, and make letters their own.
The first typeface that you see here is called the India typeface, and it was designed recently by Geetika Alok and Henrik Kubel. While it would be nearly impossible to read a document written in this script, it is undeniably beautiful and exotic to look at as you let your eyes trace through the blue mazes of letters.
The colorful letters you see below are part of a children’s alphabet called Elephabet, and for a very good reason—every letter is an elephant, stretched into a different pose. It was designed by Yusof Gaja, whose bright artistic flair shows in each letter.
Finally, we have an alphabet that is off the page. This typeface, created by the Butler Bros. for HFH (High Fashion Homes) is made up entirely of furniture and home décor.
Of course, there are many more examples of amazing typefaces out there, and more are always being created. It’s also very easy to come up with your own. Many sites are dedicated to helping users turn handwriting or made up typefaces into actual computer fonts, and there’s no end to the options out there!
Amazing typefaces are the bee’s knees, and I hope you’ve enjoyed taking a look at what some very talented artists have done with their abilities. Please come back next week for another look at what can happen when words and pictures join forces!
How do you get the fonts? Are there websites to go to? where do you find them? How do you make them? I love these!
Good questions! Unfortunately, the fonts featured here were each designed for a very specific purpose and aren't available for download online, but there are good sites to look at if you're interested: http://www.urbanfonts.com, http://www.400fonts.com, and http://www.flamingtext.com each have some fun fonts that are free to download. As for making your own fonts, http://www.yourfonts.com is a really fun and easy way to make them, but I believe you can make only one font for free. http://www.fontstruct.com is also a nice way to mess around with and create fonts online. I hope this helps!