“If any man wishes to write a clear style, let him first be clear in his thoughts.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A while back I wrote about a website to download fonts for your projects. After a while I couldn’t find what I was looking for so I started searching around and came across DAfonts. It is a decent site that has over 8000 fonts. I love that they display all of them in a large format. Many font sites have small examples and after you go through all the trouble of downloading and installing, you realize it is not what you were looking for. The site is super simple with just what you need. It has a quickie intro of how to install the fonts and to download them just click the button to the right of any font. Fonts are good for any project. There is a strange common myth that you must install fonts for each program. This thankfully is not true. One you install a font in the system it will be available to any program that can change its writing style. I use many different fonts for Photoshop projects and Microsoft Word sheets. Give it a try and for geek’s sake, stop using comic sans.

“What happens to the hole when the cheese is gone?” Bertolt Brecht

How much do you spend on ink? I would argue that it is one of the most expensive liquids on the planet. Every time you print you spend money. It is a simple equation but not printing is not always an option. . What if there was a way to print with less ink but still have pages looking normal? This post has turned into an infomercial. NOW HOW MUCH WOULD YOU PAY? Well according to Spranq Creative Communications their Ecofont prints with 20% less ink. They created a font with tiny holes inside the letters. It looks like Swiss cheese. Sometimes the simple answers are truly the best. The nice bit is that if you print at normal size type (10-14) it is barely noticeable if at all but if you pump it up to 72 point size it becomes apparent how it works. I am still testing this out but I have to say if it does what it says it does, I may adopt this for almost all my printing. There is no reason to waste money or resources if you don’t have to. One last thing: the font is free so why not give it a try? Download and test it yourself. If you like it, they do take donations.

“A true photograph need not be explained, nor can it be contained in words.” Ansel Adams

This next Flickr tool site is, I believe, is just for fun. Since people take photos of everything someone came up with a great idea to spell using only pictures from Flickr. This site is barebones and straightforward. Just type in some words that you want to see and press enter, from there you will see a mix of photos that have been tagged with enough information to spell your choices. If you keep hitting the refresh button at the top of the browser it will constantly choose randomly from the Flickrverse. What can you do with all of this? You could use this in any project that calls for lettering. If you scrapbook or create presentations this might be a new way of putting it all together. Give it a try even if all you do is spell your own name.

Note: Photo of Ansel Adams from 1960 by Nancy Newhall

“Create your own visual style... let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others.” Orson Welles

So it is finally official you cannot stand the basic set of fonts that came with your computer and you need something really different for a project, then it is time to head to 1001fonts. To begin what is a font? A font is a set of instructions for your computer that tells it how to write in a specific style. Two of the most famous fonts are Arial and Times New Roman. Years ago we were having a Halloween party and we wanted the invitations to look like ransom notes. To do so I checked on the net for ransom note font and tons of results came up. Once I found one I downloaded it to the computer and then unzipped it. Many files come compressed to speed up downloading so many times you will have to use a free program like 7-zip to unpack it. Then I clicked on the start button and the control panels. Finally I dragged the font file I had to the font folder and watched it install itself. Once that was done I closed everything and opened Microsoft Word and changed the font from Times New Roman to Ransom note. Now when I start typing it looks like a ransom not or whatever font I set it to. 1001 fonts has a ton of different fonts and styles but if this explanation confused you use their help section and it should answer all the questions you have. If you need a fresh look to your writing then give it a try.