Color Competition
Competitions, News | Rob Meek (meek) | May 15th, 2025
Dear FontStructors,
Spring is here and the flowers are a-blooming in every shade and hue, or so they tell me.
It’s time for the latest FontStruct Competition, and this time our theme is color*.
– Bermuda Triangles by four
For this competition, any FontStructor can design and enter up to three color FontStructions.
IMPORTANT: If you are NOT a patron, in order to access color, you must proactively enter this competition: Simply login and visit https://fontstruct.com/enter/color. Three empty color FontStructions will be created for you automatically. (Please do not create extra accounts in order to access additional color FontStructions. Such accounts will be deleted.)
To get an idea of how to work with color and layers, I recommend reading the original color blog post, and/or watch this amazing video by kassymkulov. Note that you can use a maximum of 8 different colors in a design.
The Brief
Very simple. We would like you to build one or more FontStructions which make good (creative/clever/appropriate) use of color. That’s it! You might want to take a look at our existing color fonts for inspiration.
When you’re done and ready to submit an entry, remember to tag it with “ColorComp”.
Competition Time Period
Thursday, 15th May 2025 – Friday 30th May, 2025
Competition Rules
- You must be a registered FontStruct user.
- Your submissions must make use of color/shade in some way
- Your submission(s) must be posted and made “public” between 15th May 2025 and 10th June, 2025. 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 30th May, 2025 at 11pm PST. Additionally, your submission(s) must remain public at least until 10th June 2025 in order to give the judges enough time to review all qualifying entries.
- Your submission(s) must be tagged with a “ColorComp” tag. (For fairness, during the competition time period, no FontStruction with the “ColorComp” tag will be awarded a “Staff Pick”.)
- Your submission(s) must be downloadable. If your FontStruction cannot be downloaded, the submission will not be including in the judging.
- Your submission must be a newly published FontStruction. Simply adding the “ColorComp” tag to an already published font is not allowed.
- For each submission, you must post at least one sample image in the comments of the FontStruction.
- FontStruct cloning is permitted but the judges will be looking for original work.
- You may enter up to three FontStructions to the competition.
- This is a friendly competition. Cheering, favoriting and fun banter is encouraged but cruel and uncivil behavior will not be tolerated.
- 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 30th and June 10th. (We are still looking for a celebrity judge.)
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 June 10th 2025.
Prizes
The three 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 30th May 2025 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.
Happy FontStructing!
*I normally write colour on this blog, but to avoid confusion, it will be color (no ‘u’) for the duration of this competition.
FontStruct would like to heartily thank our principal sponsors Glyphs and FontSelf, and our many FS Patrons for supporting FontStruct.
Wow! Thanks again for this opportunity to boost our creativity, dear @FontStruct! We’re going into comp mode today!
– elmoyenique — May 15, 2025 #
i’d like to design color fonts on fontstruct, thank you @meek!
– SUMMER701 — May 15, 2025 #
i got Whoops! An Error has occurred. The server returned a “403 Forbidden” when i clicked on jouser-color-2
– Kevin211 — May 15, 2025 #
OK. That’s wierd. Looking into this now …
– Rob Meek (meek) — May 15, 2025 #
@Kevin211. Should be fixed now. You’ll need to visit https://fontstruct.com/enter/color again.
– Rob Meek (meek) — May 15, 2025 #
Oh, these competitions are always interesting to participate. Let’s go! And thanks for the video mention, I actually don’t like its audio but let it be for now, I just need to make another one.
– kassymkulov — May 15, 2025 #
Do entires need to use at least two colors to be counted? Can entries use a single color that is not #000000?
– BWM — May 15, 2025 #
@BWM You could enter a monochromatic FontStruction in #000000 if you want.
– Rob Meek (meek) — May 15, 2025 #
I don’t seem to have the Layers option? I should have it if I want to make an entry to this competition…
– AidenFont — May 15, 2025 #
yippee
– Kyyle — May 15, 2025 #
I didn’t know, im panicking, i accidentally deleted 2/3 color fonts im supposed to make, omg it left a error forbidden message im so srry
– Kyyle — May 15, 2025 #
@AidenFont Did you go to https://fontstruct.com/enter/color? Also, you may need to clear your browser cache so you get the latest version of the FontStructor. Use /contact if you continue to have issues.
– Rob Meek (meek) — May 15, 2025 #
@Kyyle If you return to https://fontstruct.com/enter/color it should create replacement color fonts for you to work with.
– Rob Meek (meek) — May 15, 2025 #
thank you meeky :3
– Kyyle — May 15, 2025 #
I have a problem with color fonts. Yesterday I was able to start one of them. but today, these pages with my fonts say that I am not logged in to my account. although I have logged in and this problem is only on these pages.
– Sychoff — May 16, 2025 #
@sychoff oh the same happened to me after finishing the expo’92 font
– digitalio-2 — May 16, 2025 #
@Sychoff and @digitalio-2: Should be working again now!
– Rob Meek (meek) — May 16, 2025 #
yes, it works, thanks
– Sychoff — May 16, 2025 #
I’ll step into the competition.
– ctcg_ — May 16, 2025 #
Now I know how to color!
– jeckon — May 17, 2025 #
Is there some more documentation please, how these layers can, or can not be operated?
I do not expect to use this feature much in the future, but wanted to at least give it a try during this event. Soon I stumbled on some unexpected boundaries, or at least undocumented “features”.
1. can I somehow transfer larger groups of bricks between layers or do I have to repeatedly build them from scratch in each layer individually?
2. if I make some brick of different layers stacked over each other, can I somehow manipulate them separatelly or once they are in place they will be fixed together until removed?
– Petruuccio — May 18, 2025 #
@Petruuccio I’m sure FontStructors who have worked a lot with layers will be able to help you more.
But I think the answers to your questions are:
1. no – you cannot copy and paste bricks between layers.
and
2. you cannot make multi-layer/multi-colour bricks.
– Rob Meek (meek) — May 18, 2025 #
Can I still keep and duplitcate my three color fonts?
– NWKS405 — May 19, 2025 #
@NWKS405 The competition FontStructions should not be cloneable. But they will not disappear after the competition ends.
– Rob Meek (meek) — May 20, 2025 #
@ Rob Meek “2. you cannot make multi-layer/multi-colour bricks.”
That was not my intention. My trouble is, whenever I place two bricks of different layers in same place, I can not edit these layers in that spot individually anymore (like turn or mirror just the last added one), or at least don’t know how.
– Petruuccio — May 20, 2025 #
@Petruccio This might not be perfect, but selections won’t include invisible layers, so you can hide other layers in order to work only with bricks on one single layer. Perhaps other FontStructors have experience with this challenge?
– Rob Meek (meek) — May 21, 2025 #
@ Rob Meek thank you, that is at least something, I will give it another try.
– Petruuccio — May 21, 2025 #
@Petruuccio: I do it like @meek says, turning off layers to move or copy bricks. It may seem cumbersome, but you’ll eventually get used to it. Waiting for your fonts this Comp.
– elmoyenique — May 21, 2025 #
My two cents, after poking around for a bit:
1. The inability to copy/paste between layers is unfortunate, and at times exceedingly frustrating. In general, there seems no way to copy out of a colour font.
2. You can, however, paste from a regular fonstruction open in a different browser tab into the colour font, but only to the bottom layer, regardless of visibility (so a temporary rearrangement may be necessary).
– riccard0 — May 24, 2025 #
@Elmoyenique & @Riccard0, thank you guys for encouraging me.
I will surely try the inter-font bottom-layer copying workaround.
– Petruuccio — May 26, 2025 #