Custom Fonts

(Please - never write anything like the title above, except as a joke.)

Fonts keep things interesting.  Sometimes they supply a specific character or theme for your work.
 Sometimes different fonts are used for Emphasis, sometimes for clarity.

== Background ==

Have a look in Microsoft Word - it contains lots of fonts.  Some common ones are:

Times New Roman - this is a Serifed font.  Serifs are the little lines
                                  at the ends of other lines, like those on the bottom
                                  of l and the ends of lines in T.  This is a popular font
                                  for newspapers.

Arial - This is a Sans Serif font.  That is French for "without Serifs".
           So there are no little lines at the ends of big lines.
           Arial is a popular font for computer documents (reading on screen).

Comic Sans - This is a Stroked font.  It looks like someone drew the
                       letters with a pen.  It looks "informal".

Antique - This is a decorative font.  It is also all caps -
            it only has capital letters - no small letters.

== Make Your Own Font == You can make your own font by using drawing commands in Java.  But don't start with the program. First use a pen and paper to design your font. Look at this example by a "real" font designer (right). If you look closely, you will see that the lines end with blobs.  This is a characteristic of the font.  All the letters have blobs at the ends of lines. If you want the "whole story" of this font, look at: http://www.chank.com/howto/howto3.php

When designing your font, you should have a style or a theme in mind.  
You could use lightning bolts for all the lines, or barb-wire.  
You could make hollow letters, like this.

Whatever you decide to do, keep it fairly simple, and consistent (don't mix up lots of different ideas - don't do what you saw at the top of this page!)

== Program It ==

After you have a design for letters A,B,C,D,E,  show the design to the teacher to make sure it is possible.

Then you can start programming this in Java (using processing)..  Your program could look something like the one below - we will make this more complex and automatic later on.  You can start simple.