You may have noticed the hand-written scrawl "Welcome to my Wild Animal Park" above which
has recently replaced a text version of the same. A little while ago I discovered the
Fontifier, a site willing to convert your own chicken
scratch into a TrueType font. The way it works is you download and print out a grid with
boxes for each letter and all the common symbols (!@#$%, etc). You write the appropriate
letter or symbol in each box, scan it in, and upload the image to their site. Pay them
the cash ($9 via Paypal), and voila--you can instantly download your new font. Of course
all of this works best if you print, not use cursive.
It's actually turned out pretty well. It's surprising to me how authentic it looks.
Unfortunately the letters looks a little "fat" because I had to use a wider-tipped marker
than I would normally use so they'd show up in the scan. If I had a medium-tipped pen it
probably would have come out better. But as it is now it certainly captures the essence
of my style.
It's a fun diversion for $9. Who knows what I'll ever really do with it. I considered
using it on my laptop while taking notes in meetings, just to shock my coworkers. It's
kind of spooky typing stuff and seeing it show up in my own scrawl.
