Take me to the river is what I'm calling my new brush script font. The name is taken from a song by Al Green, but I've only ever known the Talking Heads version—and I love it to bits. I swear this will be the last script font I do for a while. It's been a real slog to finish this font. Not the drawing of the letters but just putting it all together, technical problems and kerning. I don't mind admitting it was a struggle.
The perfect brush font
I'm still on a mission to create the perfect random-looking brush font. I'm not talking about a typical cursive font. I've been playing with lettering on my Instagram account. I love making the letters mix and match with each other. The way one word interacts and changes the others. I wanted to create how the human hand can create each letter and letter combination differently each time. I failed with this font. Adding that real random element is impossible. The font isn't technically able to do it—it's absurd to even try. It's taken more than three attempts to come to that conclusion. My last attempt was called Little Wonder font, this is very much in the same vein. The way I look at it I am learning. Each time I create a brush font I'm revising, adjusting, and changing what I do. Plus it's fun to try.
My new calligraphy brush
I used a Chinese Calligraphy Brush that I got from my local art shop. I really love the bold marks it makes. Lots of detail, just how I like it. You can be really loose with the strokes. I used half a ream of paper creating tons of different variants of every letter. Too many to export with my font. My flat has been taken over by black ink marks on paper.
Lots of alternatives
You can get a really fun look if you combine uppercase letters inside words as they play well together. The lowercase t has 7 alternatives! To make your words look less repetitive the font has at least two alternatives for each letter. Using OpenType you can pick and choose the glyph that fits best with your design. Take me to the River is perfect for many uses. Anything from packaging and branding to book covers, stationery, and posters.
- One weight
- Alternatives for letters
- Ligatures
- Uppercase and Lowercase letters
- Numbers, punctuation & symbols
- Western, Central and South-Eastern European characters
- The font format OTF