Create Your Own Font

The most frequent compliment I receive from friends and strangers alike is in response to my handwriting. I've been commissioned to provide my handwriting skills for awards and wedding details and am dabbling with lettering as a side job.  I even got picked for a job once based on how neatly I filled out a job application!  The problem with my writing, however, is that it takes me longer than I'd like to write so when I heard about the ability to create your own font, it was like I struck gold!  You mean I could just type up a note in a few seconds rather than several minutes and no one would be the wiser?  Sign me up!

First, a little history about how my handwriting style came to be.  I lived in Rapid City, South Dakota when I began attending elementary school where the D'Nealian style of writing was taught.  I think this is the reason for my style of writing.  And I can't be certain, but I think how I hold my pen/pencil (straight up) has something to do with it, too.  My older sister who is just 15 months older than me attended the same elementary school so our handwriting is very similar.  It would be interesting to see handwriting samples from everyone who learned D'Nealian for comparison of similarity.

Back to creating your own font!  The process is pretty simple and quick, the longest part being writing out the individual letters and characters.  As an admitted perfectionist, I had to reprint the template a couple times and start over.  Even still, I wish I had been more exact but so goes the life of wanting to have everything precisely perfect!  Once you've filled in the template, scan and upload your pages to get a preview of what your custom font will look like.  If you're happy with what you see, buy your font for $14.95 (a bargain if you ask me), download and install into your font book, and type away!

Even though I still write personal cards and thank you notes by hand, having this gem handy makes life just a bit easier.  You can see touches of my font throughout the blog, have you spotted it yet?!