> This is pretty interesting. Is it art, is it a toy? Make your own TT
fonts created by a genetic algorithm!
Thank you for a very interesting link. I have tried making a number of
fonts and have really enjoyed both experimenting with The Alphabet Synthesis
Machine, which can be run directly on the web using a Java enabled browser,
and also experimenting offline afterwards with the fonts that are produced.
A nice aspect of the project is that it is an interactive online artwork and
all of the fonts produced by people using The Alphabet Synthesis Machine are
available for everybody to use in an online archive.
A font that I produced with which I am particularly pleased is a font that I
named Pools of glass in ceramic. I produced it early on Tuesday 5 March
2002. As the archive shows the latest produced fonts first, it is already
some way in the archive, though here is a link that I think will allow a
direct download of the font if anyone would like to have a copy of the Pools
of glass in ceramic font. I copied it from the source code of the hyperlink
on the web page in the archive.
http://alphabet.tmema.org/cgi-bin/getfont.cgi?fontname=1015311579
Now, if one opens the font by double clicking on it, then one might wonder
about the legibility of the characters. However, the characters were
produced with a particular application in mind, for which they are very
suitable.
If one uses these characters in PowerPoint and one produces a WordArt object
using the outline style, the one which is at the top left in the WordArt
Gallery, and one uses just one character of one's choice from the Pools of
glass in ceramic font, and then one holds down the shift key and one drags a
corner of the object so as to make the object huge, then one sees the
character as it is intended.
One can then colour the lines and colour the fill as one wishes. My first
experiment was to use the character that corresponds to a lowercase letter c
in the Pools of glass in ceramic font and then to colour the lines blue and
to fill with red.
One can use the Save as HTML feature of PowerPoint, if that feature is
available in the copy of PowerPoint that one is using, so as to produce a
set of files for a web based presentation. However, one may use the gif
file for the slide as a free-standing gif if one so chooses, which is the
way that I usually use gif files that I have produced using PowerPoint.
Such a free-standing gif file can then be trimmed using a package such as
Photo Editor or Paint Shop Pro as desired.
I wonder if I may mention a method that I use in PowerPoint in certain
circumstances that might be of interest: the method might be of particular
interest in relation to experimenting in PowerPoint using WordArt objects
produced using the Pools of glass in ceramic font. I devised the method
back in 1998 and it has been useful on a number of occasions for a variety
of PowerPoint graphics.
Suppose that one has added a graphic to a PowerPoint presentation and one
wishes to centre it on the screen. The technique is as follows. Draw a
rectangle, as large as possible on the slide so that it covers the whole
slide, then fill the rectangle with "No Fill". Then use Edit | Select All:
then use Draw | Align or Distribute | Align Center then use Draw | Align or
Distribute | Align Middle: then click on the background so as to deselect
both of the objects on the screen, then select the rectangle and delete it
using the delete key. The original object is now centred on the slide.
For clarity of the above, perhaps I may mention that "Align or Distribute"
is a menu item of the Draw item, so that Draw | Align or Distribute | Align
Center means to click on the Draw item, then to move the mouse over the
Align or Distribute menu item, then to move across onto the cascading menu
that appears and to then click on the Align Center item on the cascading
menu. I might also mention that I usually turn the snap off when designing
graphics in PowerPoint: just a personal preference, but the snap might
perhaps affect the align commands, so I mention it.
I am hoping to make a number of graphics using the Pools of glass in ceramic
font and use them as ornaments on web pages in our family webspace.
I am also thinking that the designs from the Pools of glass in ceramic font
might look very good as background designs in posters.
Also, perhaps they will also be used for producing ceramic art objects in
accordance with the idea that led to the naming of the font, that of
producing a slab of clay that is incised with a character design and which
is then stone fired with coloured glass pieces placed in the incisions in
the clay, so that when the clay is stone fired the glass melts and runs
along the incisions producing an artistic effect of pools of glass in
ceramic when the stone fired clay object cools.
I wonder if I may suggest the possibility that some of the designs might
look good as art on panels of stainless steel about a metre high and about
750 mm wide where the panel is polished and a Pools of glass in ceramic
character design is shown by a frosting effect on the metal.
The fact that these computer generated designs are available in a True Type
font already has the benefit that they can thus be used in the WordArt
facility of PowerPoint. Does anyone know please of what facilities there
are around the world which already allow a character from a True Type font
to be used to produce an artistic effect? For example, laser based cutting
systems so as to cut out a character and its inverse so that, say, a
character can be inlaid into a table top. For example, round tables for a
restaurant could be made so that each table has a different character from
the Pools of glass in ceramic font inlaid into it.
The Pools of glass in ceramic font is now available for downloading and for
use: it will be interesting to observe whether it becomes widely used as a
graphic art design font.
William Overington
6 March 2002
www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo
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