I remember back when I first got a computer, and we only had basic fonts, but we thought that they were super cool, just because… you know… we had a computer? I am talking back in like 1999, for me personally when we first got a computer at home and got the internet! I remember using those limited amount of fonts FOR EVERYTHING. Oh, and we had Word Art too, which was extra special fancy at the time.
Every notebook I had, had a cover made with various combinations of word art and fonts. I mean, I am talking we were using Comic Sans and were tickled about it, you know? I am not knocking word art, because I actually kind of miss it!
At certain points in time, I have been friends with people online who are pretty well obsessed with downloading fonts. I have downloaded a few here and there, but I have mostly stuck with whatever is available in whatever program or app that I am using. It isn’t that I don’t like looking at fonts or trying new ones, because I actually REALLY do.. it is just one of those things that I kind of get into in spurts.
I am always scrolling through the fonts that are available on this one particular photo editor that I use, both the online version and the app that they have. I just kind of have always gravitated towards using the same ones and haven’t evolved as much as I could have!
Plus, I used to seemingly change computers every time that I turned around and if you didn’t have the fonts saved , then of course they were gone! I used to be the worlds worst for not backing stuff up, and keeping everything only on the computer. After several major crashes over the years, I have learned that isn’t always the best choice!
Ever since I have gotten a Cricut (I originally got my Joy about 2 months ago, and I have upgraded to the Air Explore 2 for about a month now) I have REALLY been into looking at fonts to add to my collection, but I haven’t really jumped the gun just yet. I tend to really like Fancy Fonts , like script and handwriting fonts in general, but with the Cricut they tend to be the most difficult to weed. So far, I have still pretty well stuck to whatever fonts Cricut has had in design space.
However, I am back to being friends with some of those previous mentioned font obsessed folks and they have been sharing a lot of them with me and I have found several resources of awesome places to get bundles of fonts (I was like WOW, because I knew that there were places like that available for SVG’s and other graphics, but I just didn’t realize that there were so many fonts out there, that they have them for that too!) There are even ways, other than asking someone, that you can identify fonts that you find that someone else has used in a project! Oh, and if you don’t believe me that there are tons of fonts out there, you should just check out this list of fonts on wikipedia! That is just a start!
I think that picking out fonts for projects might be more important and even more fun than any other part of the project. With the Cricut, you can have it write out the text with a pen/marker OR you can have it cut out with the blade so you have to choose which way works best for your particular project! Of course when it comes to making decals, you are probably going to want to cut them out, and with holiday cards and such, you kind of can go either way!
Now, I previously mentioned weeding. In case you don’t know what weeding is, let me explain it to you- basically it is the excess material, such as vinyl or paper that you don’t need as part of your project- so when you are making a decal, you have to peal all of that away- They do make a weeding tool to help. One thing I have learned is your more fancy fonts, and the more smaller, the more weeding that you will have to do, and it can get VERY tedious and for me, it is just time consuming and I can easily get frustrated. I like to stick to more bold and basic fonts when I am cutting. I am hoping that one day, I will get more successful with weeding and I can evolve to more pretty fonts!
Now, I am all inspired to go check out some fonts that people have been sharing with me, and get my collection started for real!
