Brick by Brick, the FontStruct Blog

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There is a season – kern, kern, kern

News | | December 20th, 2016

Dear FontStructors,

Many thanks to everyone for all your wonderful designs and contributions to FontStruct in 2016.

A gift from FontShop

With our 1.3+ million registered users, 1.3+ million font designs and 34+ million glyphs, FontStruct takes a lot of looking after. There are servers to pay and care for, development to be done, emails to be answered, bricks to be dusted and stacked.

Despite this, FontStruct remains a completely free service, and this is all due to the generosity of FontShop, our founding sponsor. We’re thrilled to announce that FontShop, our founding sponsor, has confirmed their continuing support for the project through 2017.

Thank you FontShop!

A New Feature: Kerning

We’re also delighted to launch a brand new, expert feature to the FontStructor with the introduction of kerning support.

kerning-1

(Image shows zynesthesia by elmoyenique)

I would like to stress that many FontStructions really do not need to be kerned, and that everyone should continue to use the other spacing controls as far as possible to achieve the letter spacing they’re aiming for. Nevertheless, kerning can solve some of those frustrating spacing problems with particular letter combinations, and help make your designs more attractive and usable.

Read more about the new feature in the help.

And Finally

happy-holiday-2016

Wherever and however you celebrate it, I wish everyone a happy holiday season . I’m greatly looking forward to more FontStructing adventures in 2017.

Let’s FontStruct!

 

 


22 Comments

  1. Yautja

    Great news. Thank you Meek and FontShop, and happy holidays!

    Yautja — December 20, 2016 #

  2. Goatmeal

    The annual gift of sponsorship from FontShop is alway appreciated, and congratulations on the new feature, Rob!

    – Goatmeal — December 20, 2016 #

  3. funk_king

    Thanks for the great new feature! FontStruct is truly the gift that keeps on giving. Thank you, Meek and FontShop. Wishing you the best during the holidays.

    funk_king — December 20, 2016 #

  4. Frodo7

    “I kern, therefore I am.” – freely after René Descartes. Fantastic news. We enter the 9th year of Fontstruct in April. Thank you Rob and thank you FontShop.

    Frodo7 — December 20, 2016 #

  5. architaraz

    Happy Holidays indeed!

    A huge update, thanks!

    architaraz — December 20, 2016 #

  6. Rob Meek (meek)

    @Frodo7 Thanks. You make me feel better about my terrible pun ;-)

    Rob Meek (meek) — December 20, 2016 #

  7. elmoyenique

    I’m crying, really, crying… one of my dreams come true: KERN in FS! I was one of the more insistent claimers for the kern improvement in FontStruct and now… HERE IS IT! WOW! INCREEEEDIBLE! WOOOOONDERFUL! 
    Thank you very much Rob Meek for your continuous effort and dedication and thank you very much to our great supporter FontShop (and also thanks a lot to all you the 1.3+ million of friends and compañeros who walks with us this fascinating adventure!).

    elmoyenique — December 20, 2016 #

  8. elmoyenique

    P.S.: And thank you for choosing my zynesthesia to illustrate this wonderful gift.

    elmoyenique — December 20, 2016 #

  9. laynecom

    Yes! Thank you and happy holidays to all!

    laynecom — December 21, 2016 #

  10. geneus1

    what? What? WHAT? Thank you Mr. Meek! Thank you FontShop! Bless you all! It is a much happier holiday now! A great way to end 2016! Back to the addiction!

    geneus1 — December 21, 2016 #

  11. Aeolien

    “To kern or not to kern … that is no question (any more)” very freely after Shakespeare ;)

    Thank you FontShop for your continuing presence and giving creative pleasure all year round. And thank you Rob for this exciting new addition which I’ll explore soon. And finally thank you to every member who shares their presence, information and expertise with us; to many thousands who enjoy typography in all its faboulous guises through FontShop and who inspire and to so many creative minds who contribute through FontStruct to add comfort, spice or surprise to text.

     

    Happy Fontful New Year to you all :)

    Aeolien — December 26, 2016 #

  12. Naveen Chandru

    This is huge! Thanks Meek! :)

    – Naveen Chandru — December 26, 2016 #

  13. brynda1231

    @meek Can you expand the unicode blocks we can use beyond plane 0, as well as include Cjk compatibility, Arabic forms A, Private use area, etc.

    brynda1231 — December 27, 2016 #

  14. Umbreon126

    Use of Arabic Forms and CJK Compatibility is discouraged.
     

    Umbreon126 — December 27, 2016 #

  15. brynda1231

    I really wanted to create a lot of alternatuve letters.

    brynda1231 — December 28, 2016 #

  16. andfelcaslop

    YES! Thank you sou much, this is awesome :))

    andfelcaslop — December 29, 2016 #

  17. CMunk

    Oh my God! This will be really fun to play with. I will certainly delve more in proportional typefaces now!

    – CMunk — January 3, 2017 #

  18. brynda1231

    Can you let us make our own conpetitions. (pixelComp, KanjiComp, MathComp, etc.)

    brynda1231 — January 3, 2017 #

  19. brynda1231

    PixelComp*

    brynda1231 — January 3, 2017 #

  20. brynda1231

    competitions*

    brynda1231 — January 3, 2017 #

  21. Umbreon126

    I think the ability to list/review all manual kerning pairs in a Fontstruction would be an interesting feature to have.

    Umbreon126 — January 6, 2017 #

  22. meek

    @Umbreon126. Yes I can imagine. What might that look like? Perhaps a separate kerning tool might be an idea.

    meek — January 7, 2017 #