one week til fontober!!
September 25, 2026 at 3:47 AM
one week til fontober!!
omg it's #fontober already! every year during the month of october i make one font (well, one alphabet plus some punctuation) a day. good practice for quick drawing. here's my first font, based on a typecooker, a sort of narrow scotchy face with silly proportions in the a, e, and s
October 1, 2026 at 8:55 PM
omg it's #fontober already! every year during the month of october i make one font (well, one alphabet plus some punctuation) a day. good practice for quick drawing. here's my first font, based on a typecooker, a sort of narrow scotchy face with silly proportions in the a, e, and s
#fontober day 17: i've always loved the hand-painted "SAN FRANCISCO SASH" sign near mission and sycamore in san francisco; here's my attempt to extrapolate/normalize it to a whole alphabet. i'm weirdly into that bend at the top of the R
October 18, 2024 at 6:30 AM
#fontober day 17: i've always loved the hand-painted "SAN FRANCISCO SASH" sign near mission and sycamore in san francisco; here's my attempt to extrapolate/normalize it to a whole alphabet. i'm weirdly into that bend at the top of the R
#fontober day 28: the font in the first image is plain old Times, just upside down, right? now look at the second image where i turn it right side up. wtf!! (1/5)
October 28, 2025 at 8:28 PM
#fontober day 28: the font in the first image is plain old Times, just upside down, right? now look at the second image where i turn it right side up. wtf!! (1/5)
#fontober day 6: did another typecooker asking for a wide high-contrast face with translation stress. couldn't resist the tilted 'e'. i feel like it has slightly spooky fall vibes!
October 6, 2025 at 7:59 PM
#fontober day 6: did another typecooker asking for a wide high-contrast face with translation stress. couldn't resist the tilted 'e'. i feel like it has slightly spooky fall vibes!
#fontober day 24: i adore super-high-contrast expansion faces like bodoni black so here's my love letter(s) to them — big ol' ball terminals, hairline serifs, all the f-ligatures. good for book covers and headlines
October 24, 2025 at 10:06 PM
#fontober day 24: i adore super-high-contrast expansion faces like bodoni black so here's my love letter(s) to them — big ol' ball terminals, hairline serifs, all the f-ligatures. good for book covers and headlines
#fontober day 16 (halfway point woooooo): sketched a somewhat unhinged black unicase where all the letters are the same height. the 'a' started as an upside-down 'g' — not sure i've ever done that before!
October 16, 2025 at 8:21 PM
#fontober day 16 (halfway point woooooo): sketched a somewhat unhinged black unicase where all the letters are the same height. the 'a' started as an upside-down 'g' — not sure i've ever done that before!
#fontober day 31: last day! i asked @macrael.com for an idea and he suggested "pumpkin" so i imagined what it would look like if letters sprouted curly tendrils like the ones on pumpkin vines. not sure it works all the way but done is better than not
November 1, 2024 at 7:00 AM
#fontober day 31: last day! i asked @macrael.com for an idea and he suggested "pumpkin" so i imagined what it would look like if letters sprouted curly tendrils like the ones on pumpkin vines. not sure it works all the way but done is better than not
#fontober day 20: finished the script face from yesterday. it's nice to have an easy day! not sure about that v/w tho, one day i'll learn to draw them properly. also check out that wavy em dash hell yeah
October 20, 2025 at 6:08 PM
#fontober day 20: finished the script face from yesterday. it's nice to have an easy day! not sure about that v/w tho, one day i'll learn to draw them properly. also check out that wavy em dash hell yeah
#fontober day 3: i asked a friend for a prompt and he said "maximum ornamentation", so i did what i could in a 3 hour time frame. think circuses and toy chests
October 3, 2025 at 7:37 PM
#fontober day 3: i asked a friend for a prompt and he said "maximum ornamentation", so i did what i could in a 3 hour time frame. think circuses and toy chests
#fontober day 4: i'm a huge fan of franklin gothic and narrow grotesques in that vein so i decided to try drawing one. turns out it's super hard — with no serifs to distract the eye, every mistake in thickness and curvature is much more apparent
October 4, 2025 at 6:56 PM
#fontober day 4: i'm a huge fan of franklin gothic and narrow grotesques in that vein so i decided to try drawing one. turns out it's super hard — with no serifs to distract the eye, every mistake in thickness and curvature is much more apparent
#fontober day 18: sketched a scripty italic. this one might benefit from more iteration because it's hard to get the color consistent across letters with lots of hooks (m n u) and letters with open spaces (c r). the curly d i drew didn't work out, sadly
October 18, 2025 at 8:15 PM
#fontober day 18: sketched a scripty italic. this one might benefit from more iteration because it's hard to get the color consistent across letters with lots of hooks (m n u) and letters with open spaces (c r). the curly d i drew didn't work out, sadly
all the A's i drew for #fontober 2025 (and an accurate representation of my mental state afterwards lol). which one was your favorite?
big thanks to everyone who followed along and provided feedback and encouragement ❤️ let's do it again next year!
big thanks to everyone who followed along and provided feedback and encouragement ❤️ let's do it again next year!
November 2, 2025 at 5:37 AM
all the A's i drew for #fontober 2025 (and an accurate representation of my mental state afterwards lol). which one was your favorite?
big thanks to everyone who followed along and provided feedback and encouragement ❤️ let's do it again next year!
big thanks to everyone who followed along and provided feedback and encouragement ❤️ let's do it again next year!
#fontober day 29: my handwriting tends to take a zig-zag form for letters like i/m/n/u (good thing no one else has to read it!) so i made an irregular monolinear italic with a zig-zag rhythm. i was tempted to make 'n' and 'u' identical but i'm not that mean — how would you tell "month" from "mouth"?
October 29, 2025 at 11:35 PM
#fontober day 29: my handwriting tends to take a zig-zag form for letters like i/m/n/u (good thing no one else has to read it!) so i made an irregular monolinear italic with a zig-zag rhythm. i was tempted to make 'n' and 'u' identical but i'm not that mean — how would you tell "month" from "mouth"?
#fontober day 14: today's idea is a geometric slab serif italic, where the stems are tilted but everything else is kept (more or less) straight, including the serifs and rounds. spacing is tough!
October 14, 2025 at 7:31 PM
#fontober day 14: today's idea is a geometric slab serif italic, where the stems are tilted but everything else is kept (more or less) straight, including the serifs and rounds. spacing is tough!
#fontober day 3: what if edward johnston's foundational hand was used as the basis for an old-style font? i love the /a /e /g /r but clearly it requires more than a day's thought
October 4, 2024 at 5:29 AM
#fontober day 3: what if edward johnston's foundational hand was used as the basis for an old-style font? i love the /a /e /g /r but clearly it requires more than a day's thought
#fontober day 10: @macrael.com prompted me with the phrase "attack font" and i ran with it, imagining something that might be painted on the side of a plane, bold and pointy with no curves
October 10, 2025 at 8:25 PM
#fontober day 10: @macrael.com prompted me with the phrase "attack font" and i ran with it, imagining something that might be painted on the side of a plane, bold and pointy with no curves
#fontober day 12: this typecooker was more work than i was expecting. tapering the stems toward the middle makes the outlines much more complex and hard to manipulate (and extra-light faces are even less forgiving). the hooks in a, c, and r usually have ball terminals but s has serifs — why is that?
October 12, 2025 at 6:51 PM
#fontober day 12: this typecooker was more work than i was expecting. tapering the stems toward the middle makes the outlines much more complex and hard to manipulate (and extra-light faces are even less forgiving). the hooks in a, c, and r usually have ball terminals but s has serifs — why is that?
#fontober day 30: drew a companion lowercase for the uppercase from day 2. heavy weight + small descender = few options for a two-story 'g' so i ended up using a hobo-style tail. 's' and 'g' took the most time, but usual trouble spots kvxwyz went surprisingly quick
October 31, 2024 at 6:19 AM
#fontober day 30: drew a companion lowercase for the uppercase from day 2. heavy weight + small descender = few options for a two-story 'g' so i ended up using a hobo-style tail. 's' and 'g' took the most time, but usual trouble spots kvxwyz went surprisingly quick
#fontober day 15: i spotted this hand-painted sign at Librería Palabra de Dios in SF (palabradediossf.com) and fell in love with the funky R sticking its leg out like it's trying to trip somebody. the sign only has 14 letters of the alphabet so i had to extrapolate quite a bit
October 15, 2025 at 7:02 PM
#fontober day 15: i spotted this hand-painted sign at Librería Palabra de Dios in SF (palabradediossf.com) and fell in love with the funky R sticking its leg out like it's trying to trip somebody. the sign only has 14 letters of the alphabet so i had to extrapolate quite a bit
#fontober day 2: sometimes too much constraint is a bad thing. typecooker suggested "octagonal curves" and i decided to try a bodoni-esque face using only straight and 45° lines. turns out non-45° lines are important for A N X Z which look a little wonky here. the result reminds me of cross stitch
October 2, 2025 at 8:17 PM
#fontober day 2: sometimes too much constraint is a bad thing. typecooker suggested "octagonal curves" and i decided to try a bodoni-esque face using only straight and 45° lines. turns out non-45° lines are important for A N X Z which look a little wonky here. the result reminds me of cross stitch
#fontober day 27: finished the ink traps experiment from yesterday. the traps force some tough decisions — the R has one corner in the crotch because having two traps that close together is too complex. i wish i had more control over which direction they pointed so R/X could look a little less wonky
October 27, 2025 at 6:50 PM
#fontober day 27: finished the ink traps experiment from yesterday. the traps force some tough decisions — the R has one corner in the crotch because having two traps that close together is too complex. i wish i had more control over which direction they pointed so R/X could look a little less wonky
#fontober day 25: designed a narrow lowercase sans with some contrast for the 16-pixel-tall displays over the doors at the ends of the BART car (see image 3). pixel fonts are so hard — there are only a few slopes that look good on a pixel grid so making a satisfactory k/v/w/x/y/z is near impossible
October 26, 2025 at 2:24 AM
#fontober day 25: designed a narrow lowercase sans with some contrast for the 16-pixel-tall displays over the doors at the ends of the BART car (see image 3). pixel fonts are so hard — there are only a few slopes that look good on a pixel grid so making a satisfactory k/v/w/x/y/z is near impossible
#fontober day 8: i always wanted to try a slab serif and typecooker said i should so i guess today's the day. i'm not quite sure how to get k and x to work right tho… as it is it just looks like they're all serifs
October 8, 2025 at 8:26 PM
#fontober day 8: i always wanted to try a slab serif and typecooker said i should so i guess today's the day. i'm not quite sure how to get k and x to work right tho… as it is it just looks like they're all serifs
hey we're back with another #fontober, the silly challenge i give myself every year where i do some type design every day during the month of october and post the results here. today i'm kicking things off with a typecooker-inspired high-contrast marker face
October 1, 2025 at 8:39 PM
hey we're back with another #fontober, the silly challenge i give myself every year where i do some type design every day during the month of october and post the results here. today i'm kicking things off with a typecooker-inspired high-contrast marker face