My First Font! (It’s quite bad!!)

Isn’t it funny how you start with one idea or purpose in mind and then end up with something totally different! Like, you start down one path and end up going in a completely different direction.

I’ve been looking at a lot of things to do with digital downloads and design software lately, getting to grips with design tools and elements and trying to figure out vectors for drawing and designing (I have NO graphic design experience or qualifications whatsoever by the way).

And then one day, after watching so many design videos on Youtube, I found a few videos about making your own fonts and I was hooked.

There are a few options as to how to make your own font, I should add I’m only looking at free ones or maybe pay a few pounds for an app. I’m not looking to spend thousands on professional design software!

There are apps such as ifontmaker or there’s Calligraphr. Which is what I used.

You sign up for a free account (or you can buy a paid one which gives you more characters to choose from – the free version only gives you 75 characters which isn’t very much, so if you wanted to make fonts to sell, then you would have to create a few more characters than 75).

Then you download a template, import the template into an app such as Procreate, which is what I used, write your letters or characters, export as a PNG and reupload it back to Calligraphr, mess around a bit with spacing and letter height and then create your font.

Once you download your font from Calligraphr, you can add it to your design software, I uploaded mine to my Canva account and I wrote the page below in Canva.

Now, this might sound like a lot of back and forth, it certainly looks it when I come to write all this out, but believe me it’s not. The whole process was quick and easy and a lot of fun.

But I now realise how terrible my handwriting is!! :O

Proving I had NO IDEA what to write when making this!!

And the pictures are my hand drawings from Procreate too. I can’t believe how the last month has been WHOOSH of technical stuff.

I dont know where this saying comes from but I feel it’s appropriate for me right now:

‘I didn’t know what I didn’t know!’

Want to have a go at creating your own font? Head over to Calligraphr it’s really easy.

You could create a birthday card or type a letter for someone if you wanted. Maybe even make an e-book with it. Or even sell it if it was any good.

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Day #16 – How has blogging changed since 2015?

CRAFTY 30 DAY BLOGGING CHALLENGE DAY #16

Day #16 – How has blogging changed since 2015 (when I created my first ever blog)?

I used to have a blog back in the day that was similar to this one, in many respects. I used it for general stuff and crafty stuff and things I wanted to do – it became a log of things I had done and a list of what I wanted to do. I lost the blog-mojo so I shut it down and didn’t do any blogging for a few years.

I started up that blog in mid 2015. 

And then I opened this one and I find the whole blogging industry (is that the right word?) has changed quite a bit. 

Here are a few points:

1. Way back in 2015 there were fewer blogs with videos/ video podcasts in them. That’s a good thing, I like how we can add video content now, how we can do tutorials and podcasts or silly short form content. It adds more  to your brand and your content (lol, I haven’t added any but I am not proficient yet with video editing etc.!) More videos is a positive in my book.
2. I haven’t seen any ‘awards’ – yay! This is a good thing! The Sunshine Blogger Award, The Liebster Blogger Award…and so on. They were like the chain letters you did as a kid (which I always hated and never did anyway!). I should point out here I am not talking about an ACTUAL award, these were just things to get more exposure for your and the nominator’s blogs. I can understand that in a way, but it got to a point where I felt I had to make a post with all this ‘research’ about some blogger I had never heard of, read a few of their posts and say something nice about them, thank them for nominating me and then I had link back to them and nominate 1 or 3 other blogs or whatever and basically it was faff that I hated. If I like your post or your blog I will tell people about it and link to it anyway, I don’t need some ‘award’ chain-letter-post to be guilted into doing it. GGRRRRRR rant over. Thank God I haven’t seen any of these in 2021!!!
3. So many more platforms and apps to link to now. Way back in 2015, I remember there being Ravelry and Youtube you could link to if you wanted either exposure or to advertise things you sold/ made. Nowadays there are more social media sites, there’s Patreon, Kofi, PayPal, Etsy…yes of course, some of these were available back then, but it seems easier to link to sites where creators get paid to create and that is a good thing. 
4. Ads – no banner ads! Yay! I suppose it depends on if you have a free or your own web hosted site, but there will always be ads somewhere, at least nowadays they are not so in your face. 
5. There are still a lot of goodies out there – so far, after launching about a week ago, I have seen a lot of good posts with beautiful makes, delicious recipes to try, ideas for books to read and films to see, people recommending knitting and crochet designers, gorgeous sewing patterns…it’s amazing how one thing can inspire you and lead to so many other things. I remember one blog I used to follow (I won’t name it because I know they don’t blog anymore) introduced me to the idea of making a living solely from online work. This seems crazy to have not have thought of that at the time, but back then I don’t think I had truly realised how much potential there was to make a living from the internet and as such to not need to have a normal 9 – 5 job. The thought of passive income you made yourself at home was totally new and a novel idea…and it came from a blog about making sourdough bread and up cycling projects!

Overall I would say you have to pay for more stuff regarding blogging, but the free stuff is better than it used to be (does that make sense?!). I’m sure you used to be able to add videos on your free WordPress blog as part of your media section without having to pay for it as you do nowadays. And after having a paid WordPress platform for a while, I am surprised you have to have a paid plan for Plugins…Oh well, welcome to the 2020’s I guess!

Blogging has changed and evolved over the years, but as long as we creatives keep making and baking and creating and sharing our works, so much of it will stay the same x