@zzkokirikidzz: Thanks!

@funk_king: A favorable review from a superstar designer like you means a lot to me. I appreciate the kind words!

@thalamic: Thanks, Ata! You know how much I value your opinion.

@Frodo7: Coming from you, this is so important to me! I can't stop grinning.

@cayo: Thanks to you as well!

Cheers, pnut! * and # are my favorites, too.
P.S. We've got to stop meeting like this! :)

@djnippa: Yes, many of my fonts are octagonal, though I've tried experimenting with different proportions and weights. As for a non-monospaced variant, I don't think I have the patience to try it. The grid for each glyph is 95 x 57 bricks, by far the largest I've attempted. I actually had to delete at least 20 glyphs, because the editing kept malfunctioning. I even tried splitting it into two fonts, but that did not go well either. So thanks for all your suggestions, but this font will have to remain an only child.

@jmarquez, afrojet, chavez ravine, igorrossi, aphoria and SquarePeg: all of you are responsible for spectacular FontStructions that occupy a level far above mine, so thanks to everyone for your positive feedback. (And now the score for this font is a "sitting duck" for yet another visit from the font troll!)

@Frodo7: I really appreciate your encouragement; however, please see my response to djnippa. I don't know how many technical problems you experienced while creating your wonderful Escher fonts, but I spent countless hours trying to improve this font's existing glyphs, only to find that the FontStructor simply refused to save the changes. Eventually, I was forced to release the font as it now stands to save my sanity. While I'm pleased with the result, I'm unwilling to put myself through more of that torture!

@gferreira: Thanks for the Top Pick! You made a good day even better.

@chavez ravine: Thanks for your suggestion that this font should be a Top Pick! It happened yesterday.

M, R, and W have been tweaked.

5 has been reworked to correct a large design inconsistency.

@thalamic: It's very kind of you to come back to this font almost two months later to post a second compliment! I really appreciate your generosity.

@thalamic: We FontStructors owe you a huge debt of gratitude for discovering that our work is now being featured on the web pages of instantShift.com!

Because of your tip, I happened to notice that Bevel'sAdvocateMono was shown incorrectly, with spaces separating the three words. I sent them a message yesterday, and this morning they responded that the error has been fixed. I know this was a only small matter, but it was important to me that my font's name be presented properly.

So thanks again for informing us about the exposure of our fonts at instantShift.com!

@thalamic: We FontStructors owe you a huge debt of gratitude for discovering that our work is now being featured on the web pages of instantShift.com!

Because of your tip, I happened to notice that Bevel'sAdvocateMono was shown incorrectly, with spaces separating the three words. I sent them a message yesterday, and this morning they responded that the error has been fixed. I know this was a only small matter, but it was important to me that my font's name be presented properly.

So thanks again for informing us about the exposure of our fonts at instantShift.com!

@Frodo7: Bravo to you as well! And thanks for compiling the list of fonts displayed at instantShift!

@cayo: Thanks, and the same to you! No problem concerning the glitch. I've had a few of them, too.

@p2pnut: Cheers to you also! And I heartily endorse your tip of the hat to Mr. Meek and company!

Bevel'sAdvocateMono has now been included on more font lists!

1. tripwiremagazine.com's "65+ Currently Some of the Best Free Fonts Available!" may have an awkwardly worded title, but I'm still flattered that my work is being displayed there.

2. "50 Best Free Fonts From 2009" appears at creativenerds.co.uk and is similar to other articles on this subject.

3. My font also showed up on a Japanese site named Hatena. There are no graphic samples for the fonts listed there.

For downloading purposes, these three sites link directly to my font's page here at FontStruct.

4. This is not the case, however, for a Russian font archive called eGraphic. It appears that one must register in order to download any fonts or obtain authorship data. Since I don't know the language, I decided not to sign up. But based on the graphic representation of my font, I'm certain they found it at dafont.com, an excellent French archive where I registered it last month.

I apologize for blowing my own horn, but I'm just not accustomed to this kind of attention!

@jiggawhooo: I don't know why my font won't work on your computer, unless you have a Mac. You could try going to www.dafont.com, where it has been downloaded over 21,000 times since November 26.

Thanks for your interest, and I hope you'll let me know if this solves the problem.

New lowercase (small caps) and several symbols were added today. If you're interested, please download the latest version!

@jiggawhooo: I may have the solution to the problem you've been experiencing with this font. Since only the letter F was available to you, I'm guessing that it was actually the F from the logo of FontStruct. If so, that's because my font had no lowercase glyphs. There are some applications in which all missing characters are represented by that FontStruct F.

Anyway, your question inspired me to add the lowercase today, so thanks for giving me the idea. I hope you'll try downloading the new version to see if it works for you!

@Will: Long ago, I decided that I wasn't going to screw around with this font. It's easily my best and most detailed work, and I'll never be able to surpass it. I'm the first to admit that all my other fonts are about geometry, not art. But this one has been received more enthusiastically than I ever expected!

Still, I've always been somewhat dissatisfied with two or three of the original glyphs, especially the lower-right corner of the N. My first attempt to correct this problem was to increase the width of every glyph. N, K, and R were the main beneficiaries of this move; however, some of the other characters, including X and 8, were far less appealing to me with the wider stance. Also, I was not able to download the new version successfully, due to FontStruct's limitations at the time. So that was the end of that series of revisions.

As FontStruct's ability to handle huge fonts was increased, I began to think that I should try again to fix my font's problem areas. Since I had no lowercase, I used the copy-and-paste technique to turn the original caps into a set of small caps, and I increased the height of the new uppercase glyphs accordingly. Of course, now the ugliness of the N became even more pronounced, so I aborted the whole effort. Besides, I've noticed that when the height grows beyond some undefined point, the whole font is rendered half as large as before in any given point size. For me, this font's beveled angles show best at the largest possible print size, 72 points.

Recently, a user commented that my font wouldn't work for him, since all he got was the letter F. It suddenly hit me that maybe he was seeing the F from FontStruct's logo, since it often represents missing glyphs, like the lowercase I hadn't produced. That was what motivated me to try one more set of revisions.

Incidentally, your jettletter font received the same type of comment, and when I saw that this user also got nothing but F, I realized that your font's lack of an uppercase might be behind that problem, too. You can see my response on your font's home page.

You're correct about the scale of my font. The grid height is 95, and the width is 57. (More about that later.) This makes stretching or compressing glyphs somewhat complicated, since it's impossible to see an entire glyph on the screen. And if you wish to use keyboard shortcuts, then you can't employ the full-view option, which makes things even more difficult. The only solution is to highlight and move parts of each glyph until you've finally assembled it in its new position. During this process, you have to move the grid with the hand tool over and over. Then, you must fill in any gaps that were created by the move.

I'm well aware that my monospacing fetish limits what I can do with various characters, but once I've committed to a fixed-width format, I'm totally obsessive. It doesn't mean that I won't change a font's dimensions when necessary, because I always seem to use the trial-and-error method for determining glyph size. In this case, I figured out that for all the lines inside the glyphs to meet properly, I had to use an odd-numbered width, and I kind of stumbled upon 19 blocks for each vertical and horizontal stroke. The 57-block width came from 19 X 3, while the 95-block height is 19 X 5. I liked the proportions this achieved, and from there I just had to make the glyphs fit. The hardest thing was deciding which set of diagonals would work best for each glyph, and you can bet I made many false starts until I was sufficiently pleased with my results. I know that M and W may not be ideal at any height, but that's how it goes with my monospacing technique.

I believe I've addressed all your comments, probably in far greater detail than you wanted. Most of all, you should know that I'm so grateful to you and many others for the words of encouragement, and for the constructive criticism as well. Thanks!

@aphoria: Thanks for the tip about the full-screen mode + keyboard shortcuts! I use both Firefox and Internet Explorer because some FontStruct functions work better for me in the former, while others seem to go more smoothly with the latter. I'll definitely give your clever method a try!

@Will: I'm completely overwhelmed by your keen interest in my font, as well as your insightful remarks about the process of constructing it!

As for the number of bricks per stroke, I was surprised to realize that it didn't matter whether the central line of each character was black or white. Either way, an odd number of bricks was necessary to close all the borders, so to speak.

I actually did build these glyphs from the outside in. Yet I freely confess that the beveled illusion was a happy accident that simply appeared as I constructed the diagonal corners. (Obviously, the font's name popped into my head afterwards.) And the shapes within shapes within shapes were not part of my original vision. That aspect began to develop almost before I noticed what was happening!

I really appreciate your sub-pixel renderings; however, I prefer the largest possible point size when I use this font to make greeting cards for friends and family.

By the way, though I've used your brilliant brickstacking technique a few times, I'm sure you're aware that this font didn't need it. But I still wonder how you managed to discover that method in the first place! You're truly amazing!

@Will: I'm completely overwhelmed by your keen interest in my font, as well as your insightful remarks about the process of constructing it!

As for the number of bricks per stroke, I was surprised to realize that it didn't matter whether the central line of each character was black or white. Either way, an odd number of bricks was necessary to close all the borders, so to speak.

I actually did build these glyphs from the outside in. Yet I freely confess that the beveled illusion was a happy accident that simply appeared as I constructed the diagonal corners. (Obviously, the font's name popped into my head afterwards.) And the shapes within shapes within shapes were not part of my original vision. That aspect began to develop almost before I noticed what was happening!

I really appreciate your sub-pixel renderings; however, I prefer the largest possible point size when I use this font to make greeting cards for friends and family.

By the way, though I've used your brilliant brickstacking technique a few times, I'm sure you're aware that this font didn't need it. But I still wonder how you managed to discover that method in the first place! You're truly amazing!

@Will: My turn to apologize! Looks like we misunderstood each other, so I'll try to clarify.

I said that the glyphs were built from the outside in, but that's not entirely accurate. Most of the A began with just the outline. I added some vertical and horizontal stripes, until I reached the top-left corner, where the diagonals started taking shape. That's when I first saw the beveled illusion. At this point, I went back to the bottom-left and realized that the connecting horizontal lines should become shorter as they moved up the leg, thus creating a maze-like pattern of concentric shapes. Once that feature was established, it became a little easier to complete the first glyph, although the work was quite slow and tedious due to the large size of the grid.

Of course you're correct that subsequent characters were made using as much copy-and-paste as possible. The first diagonals that weren't pitched at 45 degrees took a lot of time and more patience than I usually possess. But as I proceeded, I was able to replicate more parts of each new glyph.

And you're also right that some glyphs don't appear to have been built in a simply concentric fashion. There were many false starts until I figured out how to deal with intersections that were merely 90-degree turns. But some of the most challenging issues were the angled connections of K, M, N, Q, R, V, and W, for example. Smoothing out the middle of both X and 8 offered other problems that I had not anticipated. And 5, 6, and 9 required constant reworking where the central diagonal meets a vertical section.

But the most difficult glyph of all was the *. Risking triteness, I have to say that the aggravation paid off, because it's my favorite character by far!

One thing that baffles me is that many FSers release fonts they've never downloaded. I'm not talking about fonts that were impossibly large. I guess I'm too obsessive, especially with monospacing, but I had to test this font many times before I was comfortable enough to share it.

You said, "The final result may not look a lot like the initial sketch...." Perhaps you've arrived at the heart of my FontStructing difficulties. I'm not an artist, and I've never made a preliminary drawing of any glyph before diving into the dangerous waters of the FontStructor! :>)

Eight symbols were added today:
{ } _ ^ ~ `

And six glyphs were tweaked:
( ) [ ] | $

If you'd like to download the new version of Bevel'sAdvocateMono, I apologize for the inconvenience.

Downloads are not picking up the changes that were supposedly saved today, so I have temporarily "unshared" this font until the problem can be fixed.

The downloading process seems to be working now. The new { } _ ^ ~ and `, plus the revised ( ) [ ] | and $ are present in the updated file.

18 new symbols were added today, including the Euro, Pound, and Yen signs. A few other glyphs were refined as well.

@thalamic: Thank you again for all your favorable comments, Ata! :)

@p2pnut: And thanks once more to you, Ray! But I'm a bit confused. Isn't the Pound symbol more useful to you than the Euro sign? :)

I'm humbled by praise from such supremely talented FontStructors as you, thalamic, and many others!

Cheers!

@thalamic: Is this a reference to JERRY MAGUIRE?

@thalamic: I had a feeling that's what you meant, but I wasn't sure. Never assume, you know?

@p2pnut: I'm happy you found my Euro symbol pleasing. I spent a lot of time figuring out how to cram it into the fixed-width area, but that was also true of the Pound sign. Obviously, some glyphs will be easier than others.

Incidentally, I've been preparing a new version of this font that is not monospaced. This was suggested originally by djnippa and more recently by Will. I hope you'll like it!

@p2pnut: Though I'm usually eager to try new FS features, this font and its forthcoming proportional sibling will remain defiantly Old School. In fact, I didn't use any brickstacking, old or new, because the specific connections within each glyph simply don't allow it. And there are no fancy filter settings either. Other future fonts may be a different matter.

Total dafont.com downloads of Bevel'sAdvocateMono passed 50,000 yesterday! Hard to believe, isn't it? :)

And NovaMono has been downloaded more than 11,000 times at dafont.

@p2pnut: At first, I was reluctant to blow my own horn, again. But you've posted some of your work at dafont.com, so you're aware that their stats are available only to each font's author.

I always appreciate your generous comments, Ray!

Today I added 7 new characters to my favorite font.

Several new glyphs have been added to this font. In addition, I've made significant improvements to X, x, Z, z, and 2.

@p2pnut: You've created so many exquisite fonts, Ray! And that's precisely why I'm grateful that you continue to give this one such an enthusiastic reception. Cheers!

Six additional characters have now been incorporated into this font.

A few more miscellaneous glyphs were created today.

More than two dozen lowercase characters with diacritics were added to this font today.

@authorgirl: Thanks for your favorable comment! I'm glad you like my font.

Several more glyphs were designed today.

More characters have been added recently.

@ funk_king: Thanks for noticing; however, I believe madison ave. will be able to maintain its high ranking indefinitely! :)

@Upixel: Thanks for your kind remarks!

Incidentally, I've been watching your development as a FontStruct designer, and I should have sent my compliments to you before now.

@Upixel: Thank you again!

About two dozen uppercase glyphs with diacritics were added today.

@Em42: Thank you so much for spotting this and letting me know! I'm extremely flattered that the museum liked my Bevel'sAdvocateMono font; however, I've asked them for a donation to cover its use in their commercial project. We'll see what happens.

Thanks again!

@p2pnut: Ray, thanks as always for your typically generous remarks! As soon as Em42 sent me the image of the poster, I told a friend that I'd surely hear from you as well.

Today, a representative of the museum responded that they're closed for the summer holiday. In the meantime, she's forwarding my request to the correct department. If anything happens, I'll let you know. Cheers! :)

@ afrojet: Your opinion means a lot to me, aj, so I really appreciate your comment!

@Tylo: Thank you! I'm pleased that you like my font. :)

Seven new glyphs with diacritics were created today.

@Em42: I have received a reply from the graphic designer of the "Roma in Scena" poster. Her firm is making a generous donation to me for the commercial use of Bevel'sAdvocateMono. And they plan to use my font in their next campaign as well! So thank you again for showing me the poster. Without you, I would never have known about it!

@p2pnut: Apparently your life outside of FontStruct has kept you busy lately, and I'm surely not the only one who misses your beautiful work and warm comments to others. But I hope you see my message to Em42, since it pertains to the "tangible reward" you mentioned!

Bevel'sAdvocateMono continues to thrive at dafont.com!

Bevel'sAdvocateMono continues to thrive at dafont.com!

@ Macheratus: Thanks for your comment.

@victorialys: I'm very flattered that you want to use my Bevel'sAdvocateMono font for your web site. I have a few questions for you, so I'm going to send you a private message.

@pepecleto: I'm going to send you a private message about purchasing a commercial license for the use of my Bevel'sAdvocateMono font. And thanks for your interest!

@Anne Natalie: I'm happy that you like my font! Please take a look at the private message I'm sending you here on FontStruct.