Category: Crafts

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Tech Help: When SVG files show up as HTML files on your Windows 10 computer!

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Tech help: what to do when SVG files show up as HTML files in Windows

  Updated for 2020!  This post is an update to my years-old article at Medium.  It’s refreshed to include Cricut Design Space users! Computers are weird, am I right? Sometimes they want to open up files with the strangest programs. One that I see come up a lot is SVG files, which are graphics … but Windows computers want to open them up with a web browser. The SVG files will even have a browser icon (Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, etc.) on them. So what’s going on? Well, Windows likes to. . . Read More!

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Trademarks: searching TESS with a little more finesse!

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Trademarks - searching TESS with a little more finesse

If you’ve ever gone to the USPTO’s search system, TESS, and looked to see if something is a registered trademark, you’ve probably discovered that it’s a terrible search system that is difficult to use and looks like something straight out of 1998. So I’ve put together a guide on how to search with TESS, and some hints on how to vastly improve your search results. (NOTE: I am not an attorney, nor am I an IP professional. This guide is geared toward artists who create text designs of words and. . . Read More!

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Installing and Using Hairline Fonts on an iPad/iPhone with the Cricut App

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Installing hairline fonts for the ipad and the cricut app

  I’ve had a couple of folks ask for assistance with using my hairline fonts on the iPad with the Cricut App, because it’s a bit tricky.  The iPad still doesn’t handle fonts particularly well, though I keep hoping it will get better.  And hairline fonts appear to be an especially tricky thing, because they’re so thin that the iPad doesn’t like to show them. I’ve gone through the process of downloading a hairline font to the iPad using the AnyFont app, and going through the weirdly long installation process. . . . Read More!

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Registering the Copyright for Your Fonts (USA)

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Registering the Copyright for Your Fonts

  I promised a few font designers that I would create a tutorial on how to register fonts with the copyright office, once I had it all figured out and had successfully completed some of my own registrations. Standard disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer or intellectual property professional; this is not legal or professional advice. This post won’t get into why you’d want to register your copyright; there are dozens of articles that cover why registering with the government is an extra helpful step above and beyond the automatic basic. . . Read More!

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Video Tutorials: Creating Color-Changing Mockups in Photoshop

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Color-changing mug mockup tutorial

Yo, party people! I was asked to do this particular set of tutorials in video form, so I’m breaking away from my usual text-and-screenshot methods and stepping out of the ol’ comfort zone! Here are a pair of videos covering how to take a photo of a plain white object and making it so you can change the color of that object (video 1) and how to create a Photoshop smart object so you can easily place an endless number of designs in your mockup (video 1). Part 1, 15. . . Read More!

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Busy Fun Font Times!

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Newish fonts

Boy howdy, have I been busy! Just … y’know, not here. I’ve been blogging up a storm over at the Font Bundles blog. If you’re interested in design and fonts, here are some hot posts: Manly Fonts for Dudes Applying Distressed Text Effects to Your Fonts (in Photoshop) Basic Color Theory Let’s Take a Look at Some Logo Layouts and Font Choices (this one gets pretty snarky) Deep Dive: Tracing and the Monogram It App That’s just a selection of some of the vast numbers of words I’ve been churning. . . Read More!

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Ask a Font Creator: Copyrights & Trademarks

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There’s a lot of confusion and weirdness when it comes to copyrights and trademarks. Are fonts copyrighted? Can I make a logo with a font and then trademark it? What quotes are OK to use on merchandise I want to sell? I tackle all of those things and more over at FontBundles in my blog post about copyrights and trademarks, with the information (as usual) geared toward the designers, crafters, and others who are heavy users of fonts. Check out “Ask a Font Creator: Copyrights & Trademarks” over at the. . . Read More!

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Ask a Font Creator: How Do I Pair Fonts?

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Ah, pairing fonts. Sometimes it feels almost impossible to put two fonts together and have them look just right, especially if one of them is something fancy or goofy or weird. In this post over at FontBundles, I cover the basics of what makes a good pair, some of the classic pairings, and then a number of examples of script fonts in pairings (since most pairing advice out there seems to concentrate on finding a good serif to go with a good sans-serif). Read “Ask a Font Creator: How Do. . . Read More!

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Ask a Font Creator: Catching up on Vocabulary

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As part of my “Ask a Font Creator” series over at the FontBundles blog, I did two parts on the vocabulary of type (and could have gone on for MUCH longer). The first post deals with some basics, as well as categories and styles of fonts. So if someone asks for your favorite sans-serif font, you’ll know what they’re talking about. And if you’re looking for a font that looks a specific way, the list of styles can help you improve your Google-fu. The second post gets into two different. . . Read More!

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Tutorial: Creating a Mist Look in the Procreate App

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final mist effect

Hello again! Back with another effect tutorial for the Procreate app in iOS. I’m calling this one “spooky,” since Halloween is just around the corner, but I guess it doesn’t have to be — you could draw a silhouette of a superstar singer, or a fabulous something/someone else, and have the lights and mist pouring around them. Anyhoo, my place is not to judge what you use this mist effect for. Let’s learn how to do it! I’m creating this one on the 4×6 size in Procreate; measurements and percentages. . . Read More!