Fun & (mostly) Free Tools for Nonprofits: 5 Sites to Create Your Own Font
As a nonprofit, it’s not a bad idea to take advantage of affordable, if not free, tools, especially when they help provide originality to your site and social posts. One method to improving your creativity? Font. A method to improving your font’s originality? Creating your own. That’s why we’d like to review a few of the best sites to create your own font. There are options for several different preferences.
iFontMaker
- This is specifically designed for iPads so you can draw your own font by hand with a stylus, making it efficient as the learning curve is lowered
- You can then adjust the font’s strokes with bezier tools
- It also allows you to upload your new font into Photoshop or other Mac software systems
- If you love your original font, you can make it public and see what traction it gains
- Cost: $7.99
CR8 – Type Light
- If you don’t like drawing out a font by hand, this may be a better option. Type light allows you to create and/or edit OpenType (scalable for Microsoft & Mac systems), TrueType (looks the same on screen as it does printed) and PostScript (for professional use, Adobe products) fonts.
- Unlike iFontMaker, it was designed for desktop so it might be a better option if you don’t use a tablet
- Free for non-commercial use
Font Constructor
- If you like the idea of using pre-designed pieces and simply moving them around, this is your guy. Designed as an instruction tool for students, it allows you to understand the relationship between shapes throughout the alphabet.
- Provides you with shapes / pieces of fonts so you can easily move them around to create an original font
- Free
My Script Font
- Takes a font that you create by hand – on a sheet of paper – and downloads it onto a computer to input into digital documents
- You don’t need a tablet / stylus to design a font by hand – My Script Font allows you to go old-school
- Gives your notes, thank you letters and the like a more personal feel than typing them out in a typical font would
- Free
FontStruct
- Using geometric shapes (similar to Font Constructor), you design fonts by inputting the shapes into a grid
- Downloads the font as a TrueType Font, allowing you to plug it in to many applications
- Like iFontMaker, you can make these fonts public
- Free
For some help on generating the right font for your nonprofit, contact ArcStone today. You can also take a look at the blog, “3 Questions to Ask When Picking a Typeface.”