The Numbers Competition

Dear FontStructors,

3-2-1 … FontStruct! It’s time for the latest FontStruct competition, supported this time around by our long-term sponsor GlyphsApp, the world-leading desktop font editor for the Mac.

We’re delighted to announce that type designer, digital punchcutter and communicator Rainer Erich Scheichelbauer from GlyphsApp will be joining us to help judge this competition. As well as his expert eyes, Rainer will bring with him a license for Glyphs 3 as a prize for the overall competition winner.

Scroll down beyond the image to see details of the competition brief, rules and prizes …

The Brief

We would like you to build one or more FontStructions which are somehow connected to our competition theme: “Numbers”.

As always, please do interpret the theme as loosely, literally or figuratively as you wish – it’s there only to inspire, not to confine, although we do expect all entries to contain glyphs representing the numerals 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9. Also note that the image above is only for decorative purposes. It doesn’t indicate expectations, or prescribe a direction.

Competition Time Period

Thursday, 18th April 2024 – Friday 10th May, 2024

Competition Rules

1. You must be a registered FontStruct user.
2. Your submission must contain the digits 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9.
3. Your submission(s) must be posted and made “public” between 18th April 2024 and 10th May, 2024. 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 than 10th May, 2024 at 11pm PST. Additionally, your submission(s) must remain public at least until 18th May 2024 in order to give the judges enough time to review all qualifying entries.
4. Your submission(s) must be tagged with a “NumbersComp” tag. (For fairness, during the competition time period, no FontStruction with the “NumbersComp” tag will be awarded a Staff Pick.)
5. Your submission(s) must be downloadable. If your FontStruction cannot be downloaded, the submission will not be including in the judging.
6. Your submission must be a newly published FontStruction. Simply adding the “NumbersComp” tag to an already published font is not allowed.
7. For each submission, you must post at least one sample image in the comments of the FontStruction.
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 license you like for your FontStruction. (but it needs to be downloadable!)

Judging and announcing the winners

All qualifying FontStructions will by judged by FontStruct staff  between May 11th and May 18th.
Three prizewinners will be chosen.
One of these will be the FontStructors’ Favourite*.
One winner will be a ‘newcomer’ – i.e. someone who has never won a FontStruction competition prize in the past.
One winner will be chosen as an overall winner (this overall winner could be either the “FontStructor’s Favourite” or the “Newcomer”.)
Winners will be announced in a FontStruct Blog post on Tuesday May 18th 2024.

Prizes

The overall winner will receive a full license for Glyphs 3.

The other two winners can choose to receive either a T-shirt printed with a FontStruction glyph of their choice, or one year’s free “patron” status on FontStruct.

*FontStructors’ Favourite

The valid entry with the highest number of legitimate favourites (yes we check!) at 11pm PST on 10th May 2024 will be the FontStructor’s Favorite and one of the three prizewinners.

Questions?

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

FontStruct on four.
Uno, due, tre, quattro …

FontStruct would like to heartily thank our principal sponsor Glyphs and our many FS Patrons for supporting FontStruct.

16 Years of FontStruct

Dear FontStructors,

Over the past decade and a half, many millions of our bricks have been arranged across the world. I found the ones pictured above last Summer, shining through the drizzle in the small Irish town of Callan while looking for their designer who unfortunately was away at the time. There is no sight more magical for me than FontStructions glimpsed out in the wild like this.

So Happy Birthday! FontStruct was launched 16 years ago today on April 1st 2008. Since then we’ve welcomed 2.2 million FontStructors to the grid, and about 2.4 million designs have been started. 77,000 FontStructions have been shared publicly in our Gallery.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to our site over the past 16 years, especially to those of you who have created and shared your original designs here.

An extra-special thanks to each of our 30 or so Patrons, who make a tangible and vital contribution to the site.

Thanks also to Rainer and Georg of the Glyphs project, creators of the wonderful Glyphs 3 font editor. Glyphs is our main sponsor and they continue to generously support modular typography on FontStruct in 2024, having done so now for over 10 years!

Here, as a small, sweet birthday delight, are a selection of 256 “P”s designed on FontStruct in recent years. (P is the 16th letter of the latin alphabet).

What’s Next

There will be another competition starting soon. Hopefully within the next two weeks. Watch this space!

Happy FontStructing!