One of my most popular fonts is Fierce. It’s a grungy, hand-painted OpenType SVG bitmap font that retains all the lovely brush marks of the original painted letters.
The name came afterwards, when I started putting the lettering across photographs of people who looked like they didn’t give a shit.
Making the font was a lot of work. Then I had to name the bloody thing.
Naming a font is a funny business
Sometimes it’s easy. A good name pops into your head, it fits, and you’re done.
Sometimes you have a rough idea, live with it for a while, and it grows on you.
Other times, it’s a proper slog. You brainstorm, cogitate, try different words and variations, and nothing quite fits. Every name sounds good for about five minutes.
When that happens, I usually put it aside and do something else. Sometimes a name comes to me when I’ve stopped trying so hard to think of one. And some people call that divine inspiration.
More often than not, there’s nothing divine about it. Someone says something interesting, and I make a note. A word crops up on television, and I think, “There might be something in that.”
I think you have to keep feeding your brain interesting stuff. Some of it sits somewhere inside your head, and hopefully, when you need an idea, your brain returns the favour.
I listen to a lot of music while I’m working, so many of my font names come from songs, lyrics or the feeling a song gives me. It narrows the field and gets me thinking in a particular direction.
That didn’t work with this typeface.
Did I have the name before I started?
No. This time, I designed the font first and named it afterwards.
Once I’d finished it and started putting together images to show it off, I found some fantastic photographs of people’s faces on Unsplash. I wanted the lettering big and bold, slapped right across them.
When I worked in movie promotion, we were never allowed to put type across people’s faces. So, naturally, that was exactly what I wanted to do here.
The photographs helped me find the name
Some of the people in those photographs had real attitude. They looked like they didn’t give a shit, and that suited the lettering perfectly.
I was amazed that such good images were available for free, so I made sure I credited every photographer whose work I used.
As I laid the type across the faces and added extra paint splashes, I started to see how much energy the font had. The photographs brought that out. Together, they gave me a clearer idea of what the name needed to capture.
I tried quite a few names, but nothing seemed right. I often go for longer names, but I wanted something short for this one.
Eventually, I hit on Fierce.
It felt right. Short, direct, and a good match for the attitude in both the lettering and the photographs.
Did I consider any other names?
Yes, and some were better than others.
Wallop, Rumpus, Gobsmacked, Bollocking and Swagger were among the contenders.
I’m not sure Bollocking would have gone down particularly well. Someone would have complained, and then I’d have had to answer an angry email about a font called Bollocking.
I quite liked Rumpus, but it felt a bit too friendly and warm for this particular typeface. I think the name was already taken, too. Annoying at the time, but I’m glad now.
Fierce was the better fit.
Did I check whether the name was already in use?
Yes. I searched online and couldn’t find another font called Fierce at the time.
What does “fierce” mean?
Fierce is an adjective, and it summed up what I saw in the lettering: intensity, power and attitude. There’s determination in the word, too, which felt appropriate after all the work that went into making it.
I painted the individual letters onto acetate, then photographed each one against a lightbox. After that came cleaning up the images, removing the backgrounds and preserving the painted detail.
It’s a hell of a lot of work. You have to be quite determined to see it through, particularly when you’re still cleaning up letters long after the excitement of painting them has worn off.
So the name captured the font’s energy, but it also reflected some of the determination that went into making it.
There’s more about the painted letters, transparency and what’s included in Fierce Font: Real Paint. No Apologies.
Does the name still fit today?
Yes. I still like it, which isn’t always how I feel about things I’ve made.
It still captures what I see in the font: energy, attitude and the marks left by painting the letters by hand. Looking back, I think it was a good choice.
That’s how Fierce got its name. A bit of brainstorming, some brilliant photography and a desire for something shorter than my usual names. Eventually, I found a word that matched the lettering.
I’d be interested to hear how you name your typefaces—or anything else you’ve made. Feel free to drop me a line on Instagram at @itsmesimonok.
Be lucky.
Written by Simon Stratford, an independent type designer and graphic designer based in London. These are my opinions, reached after too little sleep and too much coffee.