Download Various Beautiful Handwriting And Calligraphic Fonts From This Link

January 18, 2013

Download various beautiful handwriting and calligraphic fonts from this link.

I have collected them and uploaded to this file-share website.

http://www.boxca.com/ydslboyunogn/fonts.rar.html

Enter the site and click on "Получить ссылку для скачивания" (in Russian "Get the download link") to get the download link.

Edited January 18, 2013 by Santak

January 19, 2013

Download various beautiful handwriting and calligraphic fonts from this link.
I have collected them and uploaded to this file-share website.
http://www.boxca.com/ydslboyunogn/fonts.rar.html
Enter the site and click on "Получить ссылку для скачивания" (in Russian "Get the download link") to get the download link.

The download link doesn't work, for me. If others are having the same problem, this could be why you've had no replies (?)

January 19, 2013

Works fine for me, Ken! I clicked 'create download link' and then downloaded it. If you want, I can re-upload it somewhere else.

A review from an amateur graphic designer

Eastern font folder: Very repetitive, not creative, mediocre kerning, maybe one or two useful fonts. Would be a pain to find out which ones, though.

Brush: Even worse. Extremely repetitive, looks like bad graffiti, "edgy" by just taking normal fonts and erasing half of it to look like a 'brush' wrote it. Disgrace to the word brush, honestly. Looks more like a sharpie did it.

Ethnic: Best one yet. Includes one or two passable copperplate-ish fonts (ignore the capitals) and one or two usable upper case copperplate-ish ones. Some creative fonts, some examples of awful flourishing. Some fluff fonts that look horrendous. Nothing has the right slant for any formal script except 1-2 fonts which are really ugly and look like they were written with a splatter brush. Looking deeper into this folder it shows some promise. Fonts like P22ZanerFour have the makings of a good spencerian script font, once cleaned up a little. (Capitals look nice, lower case could use a lot of work).

National: Forget this folder exists

Handwriting: If this is handwriting, I'm Bill Gates. Some possible usable copperplate fonts, possibly, but most are awful. Haven't found a good blackletter yet. Might try Ethnic

Russian: "Russian" = blocky fonts that look funny

Western: "WANTED: REALLY BAD POSTER DESIGN. PAY $500, DEAD OR ALIVE"

Calligraphic: What ken's handwriting looks like after he gets really smashed and writes it with his left hand by mistake

Retro: I have no idea what this is trying to be, but it's not retro. Whoever did these fonts was born in the 90s and thinks retro is "family matters" and "The Golden Girls"

Russian Vintage: Like the russian folder, but instagrammed, and stupider

Gliph: Not actually glyphs, not good either.

Conclusion: Several copperplate fonts, none of them actually correct, although some are close. One spencerian font (that I saw, but I doubt there's more), one black letter font (that I saw), and several really bad fonts that should be forgotten and a couple 'creative' ones that you might use if you want to make a website that looks like someone made it in a high school design class and still managed to flunk.

It's a nice effort, but typographically speaking they're a nightmare. Bad kerning on half of them (or more) and way too many repetition. I'm not installing a pack of 700+ fonts only to get 500 that look exactly the same.

The league of movable type (http://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/) is a far better example of 'good' fonts.

January 19, 2013

Thanks for the review thang1thang2, I don't think that I'll bother downloading!

Ken

January 19, 2013

Works fine for me, Ken! I clicked 'create download link' and then downloaded it. If you want, I can re-upload it somewhere else.

A review from an amateur graphic designer

Eastern font folder: Very repetitive, not creative, mediocre kerning, maybe one or two useful fonts. Would be a pain to find out which ones, though.

Brush: Even worse. Extremely repetitive, looks like bad graffiti, "edgy" by just taking normal fonts and erasing half of it to look like a 'brush' wrote it. Disgrace to the word brush, honestly. Looks more like a sharpie did it.

Ethnic: Best one yet. Includes one or two passable copperplate-ish fonts (ignore the capitals) and one or two usable upper case copperplate-ish ones. Some creative fonts, some examples of awful flourishing. Some fluff fonts that look horrendous. Nothing has the right slant for any formal script except 1-2 fonts which are really ugly and look like they were written with a splatter brush. Looking deeper into this folder it shows some promise. Fonts like P22ZanerFour have the makings of a good spencerian script font, once cleaned up a little. (Capitals look nice, lower case could use a lot of work).

National: Forget this folder exists

Handwriting: If this is handwriting, I'm Bill Gates. Some possible usable copperplate fonts, possibly, but most are awful. Haven't found a good blackletter yet. Might try Ethnic

Russian: "Russian" = blocky fonts that look funny

Western: "WANTED: REALLY BAD POSTER DESIGN. PAY $500, DEAD OR ALIVE"

Calligraphic: What ken's handwriting looks like after he gets really smashed and writes it with his left hand by mistake

Retro: I have no idea what this is trying to be, but it's not retro. Whoever did these fonts was born in the 90s and thinks retro is "family matters" and "The Golden Girls"

Russian Vintage: Like the russian folder, but instagrammed, and stupider

Gliph: Not actually glyphs, not good either.

Conclusion: Several copperplate fonts, none of them actually correct, although some are close. One spencerian font (that I saw, but I doubt there's more), one black letter font (that I saw), and several really bad fonts that should be forgotten and a couple 'creative' ones that you might use if you want to make a website that looks like someone made it in a high school design class and still managed to flunk.

It's a nice effort, but typographically speaking they're a nightmare. Bad kerning on half of them (or more) and way too many repetition. I'm not installing a pack of 700+ fonts only to get 500 that look exactly the same.

The league of movable type (http://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/) is a far better example of 'good' fonts.

Sorry, but these were what I could find. If you have fonts better, please, share them, because it is interesting for me too.

Thank you.

January 20, 2013

Sorry, but these were what I could find. If you have fonts better, please, share them, because it is interesting for me too.
Thank you.

They're not bad fonts, it's just... Repetitive and many are low quality.

Here's the problem you face. In a font you have a couple possible courses of action.

1) Emulate handwriting (like copperplate, spencerian, informal handwriting, etc)

2) Branch out into a computer font

Let's say we choose option 1. Many people try to emulate and copy the handwriting style, and then make modifications to it so that it fits their personal style. Very few are the people who are gifted enough in calligraphy to write something anywhere near Ken's skill AND with the skill to make a good font.

How does a person make a font, though? They make the letters, every single one, to painstaking detail. And then, they make the 'connection' letters. Most modern fonts don't just recognize letters, they recognize letters and combinations of letters. For example, when handwriting in copperplate, one would form a 'r' differently in the word 'lord' than 'writing' and also differently than 'road' or 'drive'. This means that it's very common for a high quality font to have over 400 different letters and letter "combinations". Plus there's the kerning, the spacing in between the letters. That has to be regulated to a very fine degree. What happens if someone wants a bold font? Or what happens if someone wants to make it an italic version? Or even both? The font must not only be 'perfect' when it is in its normal form. But it must be versatile enough that it doesn't become ruined when bolded or italicized. Plus you must make sure that the kerning isn't destroyed when the fonts are bolded and made thicker, or slanted, or whatever.

This is almost impossible to do all in one font, especially with cursive fonts. So what happens is people simply create several versions of the font. Yes, all 400+ combinations are re-designed completely and modified perfectly to be in several variations: Normal. Italic. Bold. Bold Italic. Underlined (if that changes anything, it does with more creative fonts) and maybe even bold underlined or bold italic underlined. Of course, there's the whole minor detail of the fact that copperplate and spencerian are written past the 50º angle, which makes them look 'italic' compared to most every other font in existence. And how would you italic that? Make them 70º?

We're talking potentially over 100+ manhours for a single font that only begins to approximate copperplate, or spencerian. And what happens if you want different variations of letters? There's at least 3 different ways you can write a lower case 't' in spencerian script, for example. So how do you put those in? Some designers choose to ignore them, some put them in as alt codes, and still others create an alternative version of their font with the different ones (and their bold, italic, underlined, etc variations)

A well designed font is very very rare, because it is exponentially harder to do it 'right' the more complex the font is. And we all know how incredibly complex spencerian or copperplate are, as compared to something "simple" like italic or blackletter, or even a custom handwriting style. It's not that these fonts are 'bad' persay, it's just that they were not created by professional font designers, and it very clearly shows. Computer fonts, in my opinion, should be regulated to simple designs such as Helvetica, and creative fonts. The cursive styles by a computer should be restrained (sort of like the Universal Penman's iteration of Copperplate) and no matter how hard you try, they will always look alien.

That being said, some of the fonts in there aren't bad. And, if 15-20 or so were selected, it wouldn't be a bad package to have.

January 20, 2013

Download various beautiful handwriting and calligraphic fonts from this link.
I have collected them and uploaded to this file-share website.
http://www.boxca.com/ydslboyunogn/fonts.rar.html
Enter the site and click on "Получить ссылку для скачивания" (in Russian "Get the download link") to get the download link.
The download link doesn't work, for me. If others are having the same problem, this could be why you've had no replies (?)

Apparently it's a binary file. :blink: I wasn't sure I would be able to open it once downloaded, so I passed on it and cancelled the download.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

ETA: from the description that thang1thang2 gives, it sounds as if these might not be handwriting at all, but instead be (possibly) typographic fonts....

Edited January 20, 2013 by inkstainedruth