Brick by Brick, the FontStruct Blog

The FontStruct Blog

Competition: Future

Competitions | | April 11th, 2020

Dear FontStructors,

Are you tired of looking to the past for inspiration? Feeling jaded by the present state of the world?

Perhaps it is time for something different; time to slip over into that unexplored and limitless country which borders happily on all of our heres and nows: The Future!

Let the bricks be levied …
Let the grid be burnished bright and the curtains drawn …

It is time for a new FontStruct competition.

Competition Brief

Future Fontstructions

The theme of our competition is “Future”.

As always, feel free to interpret the term in any way you choose – literally, metaphorically, as tenuously as you dare … You could go sci-fi, sci-fact, techno, steam-punk, apocalyptic, retro-futuristic or utopian. Who knows what the future will bring?

If you’re struggling for ideas, you could try a FontStruct search, explore the Futuristic or Future Tags, or perhaps look at some of the curated Sets, such as “Techno”, or “Retro Computer”.

Competition Time Period

Friday, 10th April 2020 – Friday 1st May, 2020

Competition Rules

  1. You must be a registered FontStruct user.
  2. Your submission(s) must be posted and made “public” between 10th April 2020 and 1st May, 2020. 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 1st May, 2020 at 11pm PST. Additionally, your submission(s) must remain public at least until 8th May 2020 in order to give the judges enough time to review all qualifying entries.
  3. Your submission(s) must be tagged with a “FutureComp” tag. (For fairness, during the competition time period, no FontStruction with the “FutureComp” tag will be awarded a Top Pick.)
  4. Your submission(s) must be downloadable. If your FontStruction cannot be downloaded, the submission will not be including in the judging.
  5. Your submission must be a newly published FontStruction. Simply adding the “FutureComp” tag to an already published font is not allowed.
  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 grid squares 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 license you like for your FontStruction.

Judging and announcing the winners

All qualifying FontStructions will by judged by the FontStruct staff and guest judges between May 2nd and May 8th. Three prizewinners will be chosen. One of these will be the FontStructors’ Favourite. Winners will be announced in a FontStruct Blog post on Monday May 11th.

Prizes

Each winner can choose a t-shirt printed with a FontStruction glyph of their choice.

FontStructors’ Favourite

The valid entry with the greatest number of legitimate favourites at 11pm PST on 1st May 201820 will be one of the three prizewinners.

Questions?

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

May the best FontStruction win.


Fontstructions used in the image above, from top to bottom: Cosmotron by V.Sarela, STF_NEW_ENDEAVOUR by Sed4tives, Comfutur by V.Sarela and Madrona by Zephram.

Background image by Sergei Tokmakov from Pixabay.

Text from what some have called the first science-fiction novel – Lucian’s “True History


FontStruct would like to heartily thank our principal sponsor: Glyphs .

Please remember that you can get 10% off the Glyphs desktop font editing software (OSX only) if you buy it from the FontStruct website. This is an exclusive offer and by taking it up, you will also help support the free FontStruct service.


22 Comments

  1. BWM

    Image uploads don’t seem to work… I wonder if this can be fixed?

    BWM — April 11, 2020 #

  2. elmoyenique

    WOOOOOW! Geniaaaaaal! Thanks a million, BigBoss!

    elmoyenique — April 11, 2020 #

  3. Midnighte

    Is there a minimum amount of characters needed per fontstruction?

    Midnighte — April 11, 2020 #

  4. architaraz

    Great! By the way, the search hasn’t been functioning for quite some time, the message says: 

    The server returned a “500 Internal Server Error”.

    architaraz — April 11, 2020 #

  5. Neoqueto

    *sees theme*

    okay i’m in.

    Neoqueto — April 12, 2020 #

  6. Rob Meek

    @Midnighte no, no minimum number of characters.

    – Rob Meek — April 12, 2020 #

  7. TH3_C0N-MAN

    YES! I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR A COMPETITION FOR SUCH A LONG TIME!

    TH3_C0N-MAN — April 12, 2020 #

  8. tritact1812

    Will definitely take part in this !

    tritact1812 — April 12, 2020 #

  9. Sychoff

    That feeling, when I have already embodied all my ideas about future fonts before (fonts Lapti, Logic, Baldiozh, Solid Snake, Aurora and others), and then a competition is announced. I wish all participants new ideas and good luck!

    Sychoff — April 13, 2020 #

  10. zephram

    Same here, Sychoff. I already carried out all the good futuristic ideas I had. Still, I’ll keep trying to think of another one…

    zephram — April 14, 2020 #

  11. will.i.ૐ

    Ooooo, someone go tap vertigokid!!

    will.i.ૐ — April 15, 2020 #

  12. will.i.ૐ

    Amazing the Live feed link is a rickroll rn ?

    will.i.ૐ — April 15, 2020 #

  13. Umbreon126

    Add fontstruct.com##^script:has-text(dQw4w9WgXcQ) to your uBlock filters. ?

    Umbreon126 — April 15, 2020 #

  14. meek

    @will.i.ૐ and @Umbreon126 – to explain your comments for posterity. There was a temporary issue with some script injection, redirecting users from some pages on the site to the youtube rickroll. Could have been worse I guess. The issue has now been fixed. 

    meek — April 16, 2020 #

  15. TH3_C0N-MAN

    Sorry about that.

    TH3_C0N-MAN — April 16, 2020 #

  16. meek

    @TH3_CON-MAN No worries. Good to stop that security leak. Maybe warn me instead of exploiting next time ;-)

    meek — April 17, 2020 #

  17. geneus1

    Thanks for doing this meek. Just to clarify rules #4 and 11:
    4. By downloadable, does that mean it has to be publicly shared for people to download, or can it mean that the fontstruction only needs to be able to download without crashing?
    11. If there are no rules on licensing and rule #4 refers to the latter, then ‘All Rights Reserved’ is valid to use?

    geneus1 — April 30, 2020 #

  18. meek

    @geneus1 That’s a bit tricky. I don’t want to get too focused on the rules. I think the original idea behind the download rule was so that multiple judges could download entries to take a closer look. I think an “All Rights Reserved” license option is ok for the comp.

    meek — April 30, 2020 #

  19. 12Steve

    I made a font that I think works for this comp. It’s called Amo’ila named after a fictional character I created years ago. mixing two fictional “Cultures” writing styles that have made peace and joined together. one is agressive and the other is spiritual. hope people like it. it’s my first submission.

    12Steve — April 30, 2020 #

  20. TH3_C0N-MAN

    @Rob Meek (meek)

    Just noticed that it says: “11pm PST on 1st May 2018” above.

    TH3_C0N-MAN — April 30, 2020 #

  21. TH3_C0N-MAN

    Looks like we may be in the future after all ;)

    TH3_C0N-MAN — April 30, 2020 #

  22. elmoyenique

    Sixty-six fonts tagged FutureComp right now! A complete participation success. Dozens of styles and interesting different points of view about what will be vital and typographically (or perhaps it already is?) The Future. I do not envy the enormous and difficult work that awaits the judges. Thank you Rob Meek, and good luck to all the contestants, participating with all of them has been a luxury for me.

    elmoyenique — May 1, 2020 #