Category: Blog

blog posts

Creating a Font from Geometric Shapes: Part 4

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Creating a font from geometric shapes part 4

I’ve been slacking like mad on getting this final blog post written; you get near the end of making a font, and you just wanna get the dang font made, you know?! When last we spoke about this process, we’d finished constructing the letters, and it was time to move to spacing and kerning. Spacing is first – setting the optimum left and right margins for each letter. Fortunately, at least for the uppercase, you can figure out the best spacing for rounded letters like O and straight-sided letters like. . . Read More!

Creating a Font from Geometric Shapes: Part 3

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Creating a font from geometric shapes, part 3

Character construction continues! I’m not going to get into every single character to show how it’s made from either the basic geometric shapes, or from parts of previously made characters, but I do have a few to share that I thought were the more interesting items. First off, let’s not forget that there’s punctuation to create as well! Some seem easy (for the pound/hashtag, it’s just two wide strokes and two narrow strokes), but some are more of a challenge. Here I made the braces (also known as curly brackets). . . Read More!

Creating a Font from Geometric Shapes: Part 2

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Creating a font from geometric shapes, part 2

Welcome back! In part 1 of this series, we created a Font Creator file, and built our basic straight strokes. Now we’re going to make a few more basic shapes, and dig in with making some letters. Many of our letters can be made with those straight strokes, but you know there’s one more major shape that we’re going to need: We need a full-height circle as the base for the letter O. Then the letter O will serve as a building block for C, G, Q, and the zero.. . . Read More!

Creating a Font from Geometric Shapes: Part 1

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Creating a font from geometric shapes

Many times I’ve had someone tell me, “I’d love to make fonts, but I just don’t have the creativity.” So I’m going to make a new font that uses nothing but some basic geometric shapes—primarily circles and rectangles—as the building blocks. No lettering skills necessary, just a bit of math! (And I’m totally using my computer’s calculator for that part.) You should also have a basic knowledge of using a pen tool with curves. I’ll be using Font Creator for all of the creation of this one, since it’s my. . . Read More!

Missy’s Font and Lettering Blog Post Roundup

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Missy's Tutorial and Blog Post Roundup

  I’ve written a lot of tutorials and blog posts, and they’re scattered here, there, and everywhere. So for my own reference (And for yours, too!) I’m creating this one central post where I can find all of my blog posts, tutorials, and general rants about fonts and lettering in one place.   FONT CREATION Creating a font from scratch, using all free programs – This was a very early post that covered some font-creation basics using Inkscape, GIMP, and FontForge. I don’t use those programs on the regular myself,. . . Read More!

My Jeopardy! Adventure

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  So I played (and lost) on Jeopardy! last night. I wrote up a big bunch of words about the experience a couple of days after I got home from taping, and they’ve been sitting and waiting until I could post them today. Check them out here!   Missy on Jeopardy! Part 1 Missy on Jeopardy! Part 2 Missy on Jeopardy! Part 3 Read More!

Missy on Jeopardy! Part 3

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Hanging with my homey, Alex Trebek!

  SHOW TIME: PLAYING THE GAME They try to keep the game running as close to real-time as possible, which means “commercial breaks” are maybe five minutes, tops. Every time the show cuts to commercial, the production team comes out to talk to the contestants. Maybe it’s encouragement (shake it off, keep calm, there’s way more game left, don’t worry) or a technical issue (make sure you’re looking over here, or doing X, Y, or Z), or getting your sweaty face powdered down. They bring out water for everyone at. . . Read More!

Missy on Jeopardy! Part 2

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Outside the Jeopardy! studio with giant Alex and the giant Clue Crew!

TRAVEL DAY: A TALE OF TWO PIZZAS We flew out in the early afternoon, so we could arrive at our hotel right around check-in time. We didn’t even rent a car; it would have been more than a hundred bucks a day, and the hotel was only three or four miles from the airport. Plus, I was scheduled to be picked up by a studio shuttle at 7 AM, so we’d just need a taxi or a Lyft from the airport to the hotel and back again. Our flight was. . . Read More!

Missy on Jeopardy! Part 1

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The standard Jeopardy! audition pen.

  IN THE BEGINNING: THE 25-YEAR AUDITION PROCESS My first audition for Jeopardy! was for the college tournament, about 25 years ago. Back in those days, there was no online test—you had to travel to Los Angeles on your own dime to take a written test in a huge room with tons of people; then they scored the tests and whittled the group down from there. I combined the audition with a trip to visit a friend, so I wasn’t just traveling from Seattle to L.A. for the audition alone.. . . Read More!

I keep making fonts, and doing other stuff.

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Once again, I’m back to this blog after a long stretch. I’ve been mostly busy with font-making; I’m getting close to having 50 premium fonts for sale. (47 right now, so I might make the 50-font mark before the year ends!) I’ve put a few promo images from four of my most recent up above in the picture. As always, you can check out all of my fonts over at my portfolio site. (I’ve added in a couple of new freebies since last I blogged, as well, so don’t miss. . . Read More!