Brick by Brick, the FontStruct Blog

The FontStruct Blog

Posts from June, 2008

FontStruct in the New York Times

Last week we opened our Thursday edition of the New York Times and were delighted to see the words “FontStruct.com” staring back at us. Peter Wayner wrote an interesting piece about the trend of do-it-yourself font making. FontStruct was an ideal subject for the topic and the first service mentioned in the story, along with some commentary from a FontStructor who is fast becoming a celebrity around this parts for his complex creations, Gene Buban (AKA geneus1).

Earlier in the month FontStruct was given even more digital ink from the online magazine Slate. Writer Jason Fagone articulated a reaction we’ve experienced many times here in our office:

“… as often happens in art, aesthetic limitations breed creativity. The most ambitious FontStruct users have created letterforms so ornate you’d never believe they’re derived from a set of prefab shapes.”

As well as the pure joy in using the app:

“This instant-gratification quality is the true appeal of FontStruct … There’s something about that moment when your own letters begin to flash across the screen.”

Rounding up the recent press coverage is a plug from one of our favorite magazines, ReadyMade, with a fitting metaphor:

“The process is a little reminiscent of Tetris, but without the overwhelming feeling that sets in when the pieces start dropping at an impossibly rapid pace.”

Wonderfully put. In the interest of keeping FontStruct stress free, we promise not to add any obnoxious video game music or imposing time limits to the editor in the near future. As for FontStructions inspired by Tetris, that we whole-heartedly support.

Calling All Torontonians

Canada’s newspaper The Globe and Mail is looking for FontStruct users living in or near Toronto for an upcoming story about FontStruct. If you are interested and meet the qualification, please post a comment below or contact us and we’ll put you in touch with the writer.

New Bricks: More Triangles

We added some new Bricks to the FontStructor today: elongated right-angled triangles, and isosceles triangles. These should provide some more options for building diagonals.

New Blocks on the Grid

You’ll find the new bricks at the bottom of the “All Bricks” panel. Thanks to Diego Sans Salas for spelling out why these will be useful.

Update:

Due to popular demand we’ve added some more bricks to represent all permutations for the elongated triangle shape: