Hey there, quick heads up about this blog post – it's a bit outdated. I've made some changes since this was published. I've left my job to focus entirely on creating fonts. Because of this shift, the font mentioned here is no longer available for free.
What if I could design a brand new font that looked like teardrops. As a type nerd, that's the sort of question I ask myself, I'm not shitting you.Like the text was dripping down the page. I got to wondering if that was possible? Would it look like a piece of shit, or a creative masterpiece?Well, read on and see how I got on with my latest bat-shit crazy typeface—teardrop.
Let’s begin. The inspiration for teardrop
Often, for me at least, necessity drives ideas. If I want something, but can't find it in the shops, I just create it myself.That’s made me design things I wouldn’t normally attempt to do—like creating fonts. Who knew?
A long short story
Come with me now on a journey, two years ago, I was looking to buy some tshirts—something different that I had not seen before.I couldn’t find anything that I liked—I’m a picky bastard. That got me to thinking, just design your own tshirts, fool. Get them printed online.Hell yeah. Let's do that. Oh shit. Wait.What do I put on these t-shirts? Think. Got it.Band songs. Yes. Make t-shirts from some of my favorite song names.So, I created a whole series of typographical pieces based on song titles. Only choosing songs that I liked.One of those designs was teardrop—a song by Massive Attack.I made that design look like it was crying—very literal I know. Like tears hitting ink and dripping down the page (or up the page for extra weirdness).To make a short story long, that's where I got the idea for teardrop.
From Inspiration to creation
It’s one thing creating the word Teardrop—how would I go about creating all the characters needed for a whole font?That's a lot of work. If you want to know if a design works, try it.So I did. Try it.
Creating Teardrop
I sketched the typeface in black ink first, using my trusty Faber Castell pen. Then I added drops of water. The drips took on a life of their own, impossible to control. I decided to use pre-made drips, I had a stack of them in my collection.Over to photoshop.
Contextual alternatives. What are they?
It’s just a way to replace a character with another character. So if you typed oo it could replace the 2nd o with a slightly different version. It makes it look less repetitive.
Three alternatives for every character
I’ve created 3 versions of every character. More work, yes. Worth it, yes.
Putting it all together
Draw it, scan it, edit it, make it, tweak it. That's my basic workflow—just to say its quite a lengthy procedure.
Conclusion
This typeface was a lot of work—it’s only due to my stubbornness that it got made. I always prefer to try something.The font didn't really turn out the way I wanted it to but things will never get done if you don’t try. This sounds like some self-motivational bullshit—its not.
That is all.