The FontStruct Poster was created by Lorenz Fidel Huchthausen aka Tylo, Christian Klier, and Rob Meek in Berlin in 2011. Lorenz and Christian are both students at the Kunsthochschule Weißensee in Berlin. The poster features 129 distinctive modular glyphs from over 80 FontStructors laid out on the FontStruct grid. The emphasis is on celebrating the more, minimal, “classical” style of FontStructing, so no FontStructions which employ filters were included. A FontStruction – Exampla Sans Medium by Shasta – was used for setting the key and other additional text on the poster, and proved how wonderful FontStructions can look in print if tweaked appropriately (thank you optical kerning!).

A limited edition of 150 posters was printed in October 2011 on 250g matt, coated paper by Pinguin Druck in Berlin, using the offset technique.  The posters are hand-stamped and numbered on the reverse side. 100 will be sold.

At 63.5cm x 100cm the posters are a few mm over “double royal” size.

As mentioned above, if your work appears on the poster (see list below*) you can use the coupon code “ONTHEPOSTER” at Etsy to get a 50% discount (on one poster only!!!). If you’re not on the poster, the poster is still a bargain at 20€. We’re based in Germany so shipping is not cheap  (5.40€ for Germany, 11.10€ for the EU and €16.60 for anywhere else). We’ll throw a few FontStruct stickers into the tube to hopefully compensate a bit for that. Please use the contact button on the FontStruct Etsy shop page if you have any questions about purchasing, including shipping costs for multiple posters (we can probably put multiple posters in a single tube).

The poster is an inspirational tribute to the fascination of the FontStruct grid and will make a wonderful addition to any FontStructor’s studio wall. Get them while they’re hot!

*Here are the usernames of FontStructors whose work is on the poster (in alphabetical order):

alexfulton, 3moDuDe, afrojet, andythebest123, aphoria, atarbeev, b boy stylez, bauermc, beate, bokuwatensai, cam.ill, caseycastille, CMunk, cwillmor, dczyz, djnippa, dpommella, eaq, Electric Keet, elltee, elmoyenique, Em42, emepar7, ex5s3, Font, fontcollector, Frodo7, funk_king, garphynk, geneus1, Goatmeal, gspace, gudbjorg_bubba, gueldenstern, guentersen, happypill, Helgi, hisham4444, igorrossi, inkway, intaglio, jcanham, jmarquez, JoeAllison, jpfaraco, jrdbnsn, JustinOperable, kekeh, kix, krystman, l3eer12, LexKominek, loboarches, Magic Sam, minimum, mrclash, nathancox, naveenchandru, nemoorange, Neoqueto, p2pnut, Parry, Qimplef, raiu, raketentim,redkitten, rixag, rubendmarques, saberrider, sbrunoj, Schafgans, shasta, Sketchbook B, sliveress, Snuggles, SquarePeg, ssaamm, strawberrymilk, swing_mr, thalamic, theterrible, TobiasMik, Tylo, Upixel, vertigokid, will.i.ૐ, zhuk

Dear FontStructors,
We quietly launched a new version of the FontStructor editor last week. So what’s new?

Expert Mode

We thought long and hard about the best way to add new features to the FontStructor editor without cluttering up the interface. Experienced users wish to create complex and sophisticated designs with FontStruct, but the platform has also always been about simplicity, ease-of-use and a non-technical approach to type design. How can we keep the interface simple and intuitive, whilst supporting those who want to push the boundaries of grid-based, modular design even further?

The new “Expert Mode” button is our answer. It’s there not only to provide access to bells and whistles for “experts”, but also to make sure that we have a “Simple Mode” for those (“experts” or not) who like to keep things minimal. Some existing features such as brick-stacking and composites have gone into expert mode, along with the first new features for a while.

Unicode Support

In expert mode, by popular request, you can now create letters using standard unicode ranges. Select “Unicode Letter Sets” from the “Advanced” submenu to switch to unicode and you will see the dropdown change in the bottom right-left corner of the screen. Unicode support is not complete at the moment but there are 19648 unicode code points available using “Unicode Letter Slots”. In the standard character sets, 2793 codepoints are covered.

If you don’t know, or care what unicode is, don’t feel sad or bad. In a simple, pragmatic sense it just means you can design a more diverse range of characters. You can still have just as much fun constructing letters in FontStruct in blissful ignorance of unicode.

Extra, extra guides

In expert mode, you now have access to an unlimited number of guidelines. Just rollover an existing guide to see the plus and minus buttons which allow you to add and remove guides. This feature has been requested many times and I’m very happy to be able to finally release it.

Guide-locking

Another new and useful feature in expert mode is guide-locking. Once you’ve arranged your guides you may like to “lock” them – this keeps them visible but fixes them in one place so they don’t react to your mouse cursor and they won’t get in the way of your FontStructing. There’s a menu command and keyboard shortcut (shift+J) available for this.

Note that guide-locking also locks the width control line.

Time-saving Commands

In expert mode, you now have access to a number of time-saving commands which automate repetitive tasks. There are commands to copy upper-case to lower-case and visa-versa, as well as a command to copy simple latin letters to their accented equivalents. You can read more about this feature as well as all the other changes on our updated help pages.

If you have any ideas for other time-saving commands, let us know.

Pen Type is now sticky

First of all, what used to be called “Mode” in the menu is now “Pen Type”. This is to avoid confusion with the new “Expert Mode“. The change in wording was a last minute thing (just now), so screenshots and help content may not reflect it for a while. More importantly, the “Simple” pen type, and the “Cycle” pen type are now “sticky”. This means if you choose either once, the system should remember that choice. So when you change away from the pen tool and back again, the pen should stay the same type. I know a lot of FontStructors don’t like the cycle pen so this should please them.

Anything Else?

Under the hood the FontStructor has been almost completely rewritten. Over the years, the inner-workings had become a bit spaghetti-like and this was making it extremely difficult to add new features. Now everything is clean, shiny and tangle-free we hope we can add features more efficiently in the future. The complete rewrite also means there is plenty of potential for new bugs to appear. So please let us know if you notice anything wierd.

Happy FontStructing!

(Screenshots show a clone of “Ohm Run Slab” by will.i.ૐ)

We’re very pleased that a number of FontStructions are featured in the latest edition of Slanted – #15 “Experimental”. Work from FontStruct intern Lorenz Fidel Huchthausen AKA “Tylo” was featured on the cover as well as inside.

Afrojet‘s “Brutal Exchange of a Smug for Some Faith” was also given its own spread:

Congratulations to those included.
If you want to submit work to future issues, check out the Slanted call for entries page ( in German and English).

If you want to edit a specific FontStruction in the beta version, go to the FontStructor and load the FontStruction as usual. Once it has loaded, go to the beta URL above.

Apart from a few minor interface tweaks, there are some new features.

Expert Mode

We’ve added an “expert mode” button which turns “advanced” features on and off – this is intended to keep the FontStruct interface simple by default, while allowing us to continue adding more advanced features for those who want them. You may notice that some existing features are now available only in expert mode.

Unicode Letter Sets

In expert mode, you can now select unicode-based letter sets from the menu, making thousands of previously unavailable letter slots available in a standard sequence. Note: some very large unicode ranges such as “CJK Unified Ideographs” are not yet supported.

Commands

In expert mode, there are some menu commands available to make some repetitive tasks easier. There are commands to copy upper to lower case and visa-versa, and a command to copy latin vowels and a few consonants to accented letter slots – in preparation for creating accented letters.

It’s a Beta

A lot has changed “under the hood” so there may be issues. You may want to work on new or cloned fonts in the beta, rather than your prized masterpieces. More information about the new features will be available once the beta replaces the old FontStructor.

Thanks for reading, and have fun!

The results of the judging will be announced on this blog on Friday May 13th.

The judges are:

• Kai Vermehr from eBoy
• Stephen Coles from Typographica and Fonts in Use
• Gustavo Ferreira AKA hipertipo
• Theresa dela Cruz from FontShop (creator of the first ever illustrative FontStruction “Kawaii!”)
• John Skelton AKA afrojet

They’ve got their work cut out!

After the great success of the first two FontStruct competitions, “Handmade” and the “SportsComp“, we’re launching our third competition with the theme of “Illustration” and more great prizes.

The Brief

Many FontStructors concentrate on designing alphabets and letterforms, but the FontStructor has also proven a wonderful tool for creating useful and fun libraries of modular illustrations. We’d like to invite FontStructors to take a brief holiday from the familiar comforts of the letter, and build some pictures.

Competition entries can be icon fonts, pictogram fonts for a particular purpose, or simply a series of illustrations, built as a FontStruction. Most importantly, no letters from real or imaginary writing systems should be included. Alternative forms of symbolic notation such as musical notation, braille or morse code will also not qualify.

You can take your inspiration from anywhere. You may like to take a look at the almost 200 existing top picks in the picture/symbol category – not all of these are purely illustrative (some would not qualify as they contain letters) – but here you will find examples of icon fonts, fonts full of wierd and wonderful characters, pattern fonts, architectural fonts, and fonts consisting entirely of sheep, cars, clocks, flowers, even moustaches!

Competition time period

April 8th – April 29th 2011

Competition rules

1. You must be a registered FontStruct user.

2. Your submission(s) must be posted and made “public” between April 8th –April 29th 2011. Although you are encouraged to share your submission(s) at any time between these dates, your FontStruction submission(s) must be public (marked “share with everyone”) no later then April 29th at 11pm PST. Additionally, your submission(s) must remain public until May 13th in order to give the judges enough time to review all qualifying entries.

3. Your submission(s) must be tagged with a “IlluComp” tag. (For fairness, during the competition time period, April 8th to April 29th, no FontStruction with the “IlluComp” tag will be awarded a Top Pick or be available for a Featured FontStruction pick.)

4. Your submission(s) must be downloadable. If your FontStruction cannot be downloaded, the submission will be disqualified.

5. Your submission must be a newly published FontStruction. Simply adding the “IlluComp” tag to an already published font is strictly prohibited.

6. For each submission, you must post at least one sample image in the comments of the FontStruction.

7. No letters in each submission can be MORE THAN 48 bricks high.

8. FontStruct cloning is permitted but the judges will be looking for original work.

9. You may enter up to three FontStructions to the competition.

10. This is a friendly competition. Cheering, favoriting and fun banter is encouraged but cruel and uncivil behavior will not be tolerated.

11. No rules regarding licensing. You may choose any Creative Commons license you like for your FontStruction.

Judging and announcing the winners

All qualifying FontStructions will by judged by the FontStruct staff and guest judges, including Kai Vermehr from eBoy, between the April 30th to May 6th. Three prizewinners (One winner and two runners-ups) will be chosen. One of these will be the FontStructors’ Favorite. Winners will be announced in a FontStruct Blog post on May 13th.

Prizes

First prize is a copy of the coveted FontBook from our ever generous sponsors, FontShop International.

The FontBook is the most complete digital type reference in the world. Since 1991, “the big yellow book” has been the trusted friend of designers, typographers, advertisers, manufacturers, publishers, historians, and anyone else who uses type.

Two runners-up will win their choice of one of the great t-shirts from the FontStruct Shop.

In addition, all winners will have their winning FontStructions posted as Featured FontStructions for two weeks starting May 13th 2011.

FontStructors’ Favorite

The valid entry with the greatest number of legitimate favorites at 11pm PST on April 29th will be one of the three prizewinners.

Spread the Word

Tell your friends. The button floating above every FontStruction is a really quick and easy way to point your friends and followers to your work. Maybe you can drum up some more  s for your entry in that way, or entice some novice FontStructors into the game.

Questions?

If you have questions just add them as comments to this post.

Let’s get FontStructing!

Over the last few weeks, FontStruct intern Lorenz Fidel Huchthausen AKA Tylo has been busy designing and testing some great new FontStruct T-Shirts. Here he is sporting the “T-FX 361331″ design which showcases the wonderful “fs I Square” by minimum. We thought it would make sense to offer some merchandise which showed off the talent of FontStruct designers, to compliment the existing products based on the FontStruct logo.

All money raised by merchandise sales will go directly towards the development and maintenance of FontStruct – so buying a T-shirt or a bag is a great way to enhance your wardrobe and support the site.

Here are some pictures of the new tees.

T-FX 251673 using abstract letter patterns by Cmunk

T-DD 249030 using Bat Country by loboarches

T-FX 361331 using fs I Square by minimum

Two shops

We now offer a choice of two online shops. There’s http://fontstruct.spreadshirt.com based in North America with prices in dollars, and http://fontstruct.spreadshirt.net based in Europe with prices in Euros. The products offered, the pricing and the shipping costs will differ. Normally users in the Americas and Asia are advised to visit the North American shop, while those in Europe should visit the European one. A full list of shipping destinations and shipping costs can be found here (for the North American shop) and here (for Europe).

We’ve also introduced a simple product coding system, mainly to allow users to differentiate between the different printing techniques used for the merchandise. Products are coded like this:

T-FX 361331
(type of product)-(printing method) (font id-number)

All the merchandise is printed, sold and shipped using Spreadshirt. Here’s some information about their printing techniques:

Flex (FX) is a printing technique where the design is cut from a colored foil and then pressed onto the shirt under high heat. Flex printing is suitable for vector graphics and the results are extremely durable. The colors are strong and saturated colors and shapes have sharp edges.

Digital Direct (DD) is a real print with the design sprayed directly onto the apparel, so the contours can be a bit blurry in comparison to Flex and Flock. Colors are softer and will fade more quickly than other techniques but some people (including myself) may like this effect. One advantage of digital direct is that it allows us to print fine lines and small text.

Flock (FK) is also a foil like Flex, but it has got a velvety surface.

Happy shopping!

Thanks to everyone for another wonderful and creative year of FontStructing. FontStruct continues to grow and flourish with more than 350,000 FontStructions in the database and almost as many registered users. More than 15,000 original font designs are now being shared, and can be viewed and downloaded from the gallery.

New Advanced Feature: Brick stacking with Composite bricks.

As a small seasonal gift, we’re rolling out a new advanced feature allowing users to create even more custom brick shapes: You can now stack “composite” bricks on top of other simple or composite bricks. If you’re not sure what “brick stacking” is, or what “composite bricks” are, please read this help article first. Here are some examples of the new feature at work, creating new bricks:

– The original simple bricks are in grey. In yellow are composites. The stacks, including composites are in black.

Here’s a more practical example, based closely on one kindly submitted by riccard0:

– The stacked composites are in black. (Thanks too to aphoria for his example of another situation in which stacking composites could be useful).

I’m really looking forward to seeing what the FontStruct community can do with this new feature. Please let us know about any problems.

Two caveats: You still cannot work the other way around i.e. you can’t make composites using stacked bricks; and there is still a limit to the total number of simple bricks that can be involved in a stack – Until today it was 6, now it is 12.

What else is new?

Since the start of the new sponsorship deal with FontShop and the adjustments in legal ownership we’ve been busy moving servers, switching domains and other unglamorous, technical twiddling. As some of you may have noticed, we’ve also added some advertising to the site. I hope you find all find it unobtrusive, perhaps even interesting. Either way, carrying advertising should cover most of the server costs and free up money for maintaining and developing the site.

You may also have noticed a selection of typography and design-related Amazon products appearing in our “Bookshop” on the right-hand side of many pages on the site. If you ever want to buy a book at Amazon (even if it’s not one which we display), please do start shopping by clicking on one of our links – then FontStruct will get 4% cut of the profit.

Finally, and most importantly

Happy holidays to everyone!!!

Everyone knows that FontShop are leaders in the business of selling fonts. They launched FontStruct in April 2008 in order to promote their brand and raise their international profile, but behind the marketing strategies and business goals was a natural enthusiasm and love for the project itself. A company founded by typographers and designers rather than “suits”, FontShop is defined and set apart from its competitors by their passion for everything typographic and creative. FontStruct is just one expression of this.

318,000 confirmed registrations and 328,000 font designs later, FontStruct has proved itself the perfect playground for novice typographers, educators and modular-type fanatics alike. It simply would not exist without the faith, vision and financial support of its backers. So, on behalf of the FontStruct community,

… and thanks again

Alongside the new sponsorship deal, FontShop have agreed to transfer legal ownership of FontStruct to me, also starting today.

Very little should change for you, the users of FontStruct, but the “terms of use” and the “privacy policy” have been updated to reflect the new ownership. There will be other changes of course (some additional advertising will probably be appearing on the site for example) but please rest assured, I am committed to maintaining FontStruct as a free service for building, sharing and downloading modular, grid-based fonts.

Have a FontStructive day!

(“Thank you” typed using T: ariapenciroman by kix, H: RM Tubeway chrome by p2pnut, A: Scaffoldini by funk_king, N: RM Scrapheap FS 1.0 by p2pnut, K: cranestruct by funk_king, Y: Nuts Bolts and Wrenches by raiu, O: cedar by kekeh, U: Masheensmith by vertigokid)

The results are in for the second FontStruct competition “Handmade”. It was a thrilling three weeks with some quite extraordinary FontStructing and offline handiwork appearing on the site. I hope all participants and everyone else had as much fun as I did. The standard of entries was extremely high, making the task of judging an extremely difficult. The judges came up with a very broad and diverse range of favorites, but once the votes had been added together, some clear winners emerged.

Particularly impressive overall was the diversity to be found in the interpretations of the handmade theme. Before announcing the winners, here’s a survey of some of the judge’s favorites, roughly organized by their general approach to the theme.

Handwritten Entries

From top: “NCD Edding 5.0” by djnippa, and “ambdx” by 3moDuD

Some FontStructors interpreted “Handmade” as “handwritten”, and created designs recreating the dynamic, irregular movements and forms of human script. djnippa‘s “NCD Edding 5.0” is a wonderful simulation of writing using a modern, square-cut calligraphy pen. Eminently usable, albeit with a limited character set, this is a beautifully-crafted design that belies its FontStructed nature, even at very large point sizes.

“ambdx” by 3moDuDe was another “handwritten” entry which featured prominently on the judges scorecards. It’s not easy to use the limited geometrical shapes available in FontStruct to emulate the flow and blot of ink and create something with a clear human personality like this. Well done, 3moDude!

“Digital Scribbles”

From top: “Memories” by softhunterdevil, “Scribblenot” by geneus1, and “00ne_Paraphilia” by neurone_error

Several FontStructors contributed entries which somehow played with the contradiction of the digital and the handmade. “Memories” by softhunterdevil for example is a powdery, dusty disintegration of pixels which  somehow looks like the product of an imperfect human hand, but is also clearly digital. “Memories” also featured on a number of judges scorecards.

“Scribblenot” by geneus1 was “Digitally hand-scribbled over a hand-drawn typeface”. I suspect some sleepless nights were spent working on this one. It’s a very strong concept. I especially appreciated the extra thought that went in to creating the “zap” and “scribble” characters in the bracket slots – these kind of details make a font really fun to use.

neurone_error‘s entries, like “00ne_Paraphilia” above, are hard to categorize but are certainly not handmade in a literal sense. They continue to explore his signature digital-baroque style. Zoom in close to discover the graphical microcosm within.

Hand-cooked entries

From top: “Ziti” by Em42, “FS Croissant” by thalamic and “Scherenschnitt Französisch Frites” by funk_king

At this point, a special shout out to “nazlfrag” who first coined the term “macaroni bricks”. The phrase (describing the new quarter-ring bricks recently introduced to FontStruct) instantly became part of FontStruct community vocabulary and is part of the background-story to “Ziti” by Emilio Ignozza aka Em42. “Ziti” is not only a very tasty modular typeface but also the wittiest concept in the competition. Emilio is well-known in the community for his minimalism and his skepticism regarding new brick shapes, so there is a wonderful, playful logic to his design. Rather than using the new macaroni shapes, he builds letters out of broken pasta rods and forms rounded corners using straight lengths of pasta. The documentation of this project and the photography on FontStruct and on Emilio’s own website is really exemplary.

Two other food-related entries praised by the judges were “FS Croissant” by thalamic and “Scherenschnitt Französisch Frites” by funk_king. “FS Croissant” is another innovative and attractive modular typeface from Ata Syed. This one I would personally gladly eat for breakfast every morning with my coffee, while the deep-fried fun that is  “Scherenschnitt Französisch Frites” should be enjoyed later in the day, with plenty of ketchup.

Woodcut Entries

From top: “Woodcut Banjo” by funk_king, “Stampede!” by will.i.ૐ, and “fs Ooki Woodcut” by thalamic

Several entries explored a woodcut interpretation of the handmade theme. “Woodcut Banjo” by funk_king is an unusual and characterful script with a handcarved (or burnt?) feeling. “fs Ooki Woodcut” by thalamic is a very neat and usable set of “wooden” printing stamps. Check out the comment thread for the entertaining story of how he hand-printed some of his letters using an inner tube, his kids’ old toys and his mother’s oil paints. Not everyone went to the trouble of making truly handmade samples but I get the sense that those who did really had a lot of fun.

“Stampede!” by will.i.ૐ should not be hiding away in the middle of a blog post. It really deserves a blog post to itself, and was singled out by several of the judges for its beauty and usability. Perhaps the only reason it is not one of the winners is that the handmade reference is not strong enough, I’m not sure. In any case, it is without doubt a brilliant piece of work and most probably the best FontStruction in the western genre to date.

Handcrafted Entries

From top: “Pushpins” by aphoria, “zcell eYe/FS” by elmoyenique, “Plastelina” by Neoqueto, and “MELKO” by UPixel

– Some other excellent entries with fun handmade samples. I’d like to single out “Pushpins” by aphoria which appeared right at the top of one judge’s scorecard. It is a strong, clear and fun concept with a direct but unique interpretation of the theme. I love the way the upper and lower case were used. Kind of perfect really. The beautiful sample is from minimal AKA thalamic AKA Ata Syed.

Blackletter Entries

From top: “Calligraphique” by geneus1, and “Amanuensis” by riccard0

Also worthy of mention are those entries which fall within the favorite FontStruct genre of “Blackletter”. “Calligraphique” by geneus1 is simply a gorgeous, gently-gothic script. “Amanuensis” by riccard0 is a characterful blackletter notable for its inclusion of illuminated capitals. Perhaps a first in FontStruct?

The Winners

Finally, the three prizewinning entries:

In third place, “Graffikki” by geneus1.

This is a technical and creative tour-de-force, packed with dynamic energy in the letter forms and in the movement of the arrows. The alternate characters in the two cases, and the variety of arrows in the bracket slots make this FontStruction extremely fun to work with and I strongly recommend taking it for a spin. I suspect this gem has been being polished in geneus’s secret treasure cave for some time. Thanks for sharing!

In second place, “Riba” by Em42.

A really original concept and typeface. Apparently simple, clear and logical in digital form, it comes to imperfect and complex life in the beautiful hand-folded samples. This is the work of someone who takes FontStruct seriously. I’m personally very grateful for that. Check out the documentation and folding-of video at House42.

And now, TADADA DADA DADAAA!!! the winner of the FontStruct “Handmade” challenge, and also winner of the inaugural people’s choice award is “NCD Embroidery Comp Size” by djnippa.

All of djnippa‘s entries were prizeworthy this time around. Even the FontStructions which didn’t make it through his own rigorous editing process could have been in contention, but “NCD Embroidery Comp Size” emerged as a clear favorite of the judges and of the community. Again, the concept was clear and addressed the theme directly. The font is attractive, legible, highly usable and thought-through to the last ingenious detail in the punctuation. Congratulations djnippa, and where can we buy a cushion cover?

Winners will be contacted regarding their prizes in the next few days.

Phew!

That was epic. Many (the majority) of the entries will be top-picked over the next days and weeks. The winners will be featured on the site for at least two weeks as the new featured downloads. All entries can be reviewed here. Thanks again to all participants for sharing all of your wonderful creations, and a special THANK YOU!!! to our eminent and conscientious jurors who gave so generously of their time.

The Jury

Gustavo Ferreira (hipertipo), John Skelton aka Afrojet, Peter de Roy aka typerider (signbox), Ivan Bettger (FontShop International) and Rob Meek.

Headline image set in “Scrawl” by aphoria