Behind the type

I've never used a 3D rendering program to make a typeface before. But that's exactly what I've done with my new font called Yeah. Each letter was modeled in Cinema 4D to look like those gold foil mylar balloons. Very big, and bold and very Kitsch. The 3D models were then taken into Photoshop. The font itself was created with Fontself. With the new OpenType-SVG features, this font is a fully blown bitmap font. Yeah Font - 3 Styles It comes in three styles: gold foil, silver foil, and just plain old black (traditional vector font). It would be ideal...

Plastisol ink textures made from real screen-printed ink. See how I created cracked vintage T-shirt effects for Photoshop and Illustrator.

Gift box mockup - there are a lot of them around, but most mockups are 3D models. I'm not knocking 3D models, but you can kind of tell, or I can, they are just too perfect. And as I keep saying—perfection is overrated. Gift Box but with Real Photography My aim here was to photograph a real gift box mockup in perspective. But I wanted all the sides of the gift box, the surfaces to be smart object enabled. So that you could just edit a few smart objects and add in your pattern design. That sounds quite simple, but...

I'm calling this new script font Gilly. Got the name from the David Bowie song Spiders from Mars. The lyric "Ziggy played guitar, jamming good with Weird and Gilly." That song was stuck in my head like the proverbial earworm. I thought "Weird and Gilly" would be an awesome name. Later I thought it was too long, and people just might not get it. I asked, and people didn't get it—but they liked Gilly—job done. Font Creation on the iPad I created the initial design on my iPad pro using Procreate. Love that application to bits, love the Apple pencil—lots...

Ah, Banoffee font, my latest script typeface. It feels like an eternity since I last created a font. You see, I've been somewhat preoccupied lately, dabbling in the realm of oil paintings, all thanks to my trusty iPad Pro. Banoffee font wasn't crafted in the traditional way with pen and paper. Oh no, this one came to life on my iPad Pro, using the Procreate software. Let me tell you, when you pair up the iPad with the Apple Pencil, you've got yourself a formidable creative arsenal. The main joy is looking at where you are drawing, nothing beats that. I've...

I'm excited to introduce my latest creation, Tuck Shop font. The idea of crafting a chalkboard-style font had been lingering in the recesses of my mind for some time. So, I decided it was high time to put that idea into action. I got myself a real slate chalkboard for a mere £10 – a steal, really. However, much to my annoyance, it turned out to be too large to fit under my A4 scanner. Quite the conundrum, I must say. But necessity, they say, is the mother of invention, so I resolved to take photos of my chalk drawings...

Why strive for excellence when mediocrity will do. Those are the words of Paul Arden taken from the book It's not how good you are, it's how good you want to be. Yup, I've been reading those things again, what are they called, oh yea books. I've been reading books. Mr. Arden was a much wiser man than me (let's face it that's not difficult). He had a point. A good point. Perfection is overrated. The world would be a boring place if everything was perfect—right? Was punk seeking perfection? Nope. The Sex Pistols? Far from it and they were...

Mu-th-ur font was inspired by the science fiction film Prometheus. I've always been a fan of Ridley Scott and the surreal art of H.R. Giger. In the original movie Alien, the ship Nostromo had a computer called MU-TH-UR 6000—hence the name for my typeface. Geeky name I know—but I like it. I have to say for such a long wait, I was disappointed with Prometheus. The film did offer many answers from the original Alien movie (also raised a lot more questions). It was visually stunning and looked awesome. But the characterizations were terrible. Too one-dimensional with no depth. Stupid...

Never even gave it a thought. Funny that as I was asked by the Fontself team if I would be interested in trying out their new Fontself Photoshop extension. It makes creating color bitmap fonts in Photoshop a breeze. I've been using Fontself Maker for Illustrator for a while now. It really helps speed up my workflow when creating fonts in Illustrator. No more copy, paste, copy paste. I thought this new Photoshop extension sounded interesting, I was intrigued—let's take a look-see. Color Bitmap Font - Let That Sink In I quickly realized that the Photoshop extension won't just create...

I first started Lawless font over a year ago, but never finished it owing to the fact that I accidentally deleted the file. Yea that happened and it was painful, a bit like losing a £20 note from your back pocket (I've done that too). So I started it again but took it in a slightly different direction. Originally it was very clean and angular. This version was hand-drawn and then traced into Adobe Illustrator. Lawless Font Inspiration I first had the idea for Lawless when I was working on social images for the movie Slow West. It's a western...