Silly script font question: Making Baseball Uniform script text…

TG
Posted By
Tom_Grieve
Jul 23, 2004
Views
1332
Replies
8
Status
Closed
I constantly am amazed by beautiful script fonts I see on baseball uniforms – tonight I’m looking at the Brewers – but can just as easily go down to the local sporting goods store and see hundreds of examples.

My question is:
How are they done? Is it fontographer/ Or is there a commercial application that i don’t know about that beautiful meshes a sript font into a cohesive team name.

I could fudge something and have tried – but I just can’t master the flow of the text when I try it. It always looks "off."

Are there books on this type of stuff? It almost seems like it’s a secret art run by an organization of hobgoblins…

Anyway – any thoughts or suggestions are appreciated. I have an idea for a logo that I really want to try to make a reality as opposed to settling for something else.

Thanks!
tg
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LT
Laurentiu_Todie
Jul 23, 2004
Learn how to use this site:
<http://www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/>
to find out what font was used for the main body of the text and finish the job in Photoshop as shape (path).

Look for swashes for the same font, they may help (though I doubt it).
NK
Neil_Keller
Jul 23, 2004
Tom,

Yours is not a "silly script font" question, and it’s come up before. But we’ve got an entire Typography forum for your type questions, which I recommend that you try — that’s where those experts hang out. They know stuff about type and fine typography that could make your head spin. I urge you first do a search there. And if necessary post all general type questions there.

That said, baseball uniform scripts are custom — hand-drawn for the style — just like the Coca Cola logo or fine hand calligraphy.

My workflow would be to draw it out by hand, scan it, import it into Illustrator (not Photoshop) where you can trace it and refine it. Yes, it does take a good eye for letterforms and a lot of practice. No, it is not easy to do it well.

Neil
TG
Tom_Grieve
Jul 23, 2004
Yeah Neil, I will repost it there…I get spoiled by the experts here and don’t think of looking anywhere else!

Didn’t mean to offend with the ‘silly’ comment – meant it as a ‘silly question’ – not deriding the art of font creation by any stretch.

tg
KN
Ken_Nielsen
Jul 23, 2004
Neil is onto it:

Handlettering, scan and use as template in Illustrator or Freehand.

The only way to get a handlettered look is to handletter it it seems.

It’s always nice, to me, that people can still do something that the computer can’t:

Think.

: )
AS
Ann_Shelbourne
Jul 23, 2004
Once you have drawn your own beautiful letter-forms, you can actually turn them into a PostScript font by using Fontographer or Fontlab.
KN
Ken_Nielsen
Jul 23, 2004
Ann, I think he wants to do a baseball-type lettering which means that every letter is treated differently, even if it is the same letter. Turning handlettering into a font will not distinguish how to make combined letters different from one another to make the resulting word a distinctive piece of art where each letter plays an individual-looking and distinctive part of the whole. This is where the traditional art of hand-lettering comes into play with a departure from a mere ‘font.’
AS
Ann_Shelbourne
Jul 23, 2004
You want him to get into creating a Pro OTF — complete with a multitude of alternative glyphs (like Bickham!)?

It can be done — by experts ….

However, he would need Fontlab (rather than Fontographer) for that.
NK
Neil_Keller
Jul 23, 2004
Tom,

The response by Thomas Phinney in the Typography forum is key. He’s Adobe’s guru in that Forum — and he’s a regular in that forum.

Neil

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