Why this press exists: after my grandmother died, the family fought gently over her recipe cards — not for the recipes, which we'd all photographed years ago, but for the handwriting on them. One aunt framed hers. It took embarrassingly long to realise the writing itself could have been saved as a working thing, something that could still address an envelope or label a jam jar. The commercial services for this want subscriptions, accounts, and your handwriting uploaded to their machines, which felt wrong for something that personal. So: a font press that runs entirely on your side of the screen. Fifteen minutes of drawing while she was alive would have been enough. Draw yours now; someone will frame it later.
— set in a font that took one rainy afternoon to draw
From pen to press, four moves
the whole ceremony, one rainy afternoon at most
- Ink the small letters. Tap a cell, draw on the guided pad — the dashed lines mark where letters sit, and tails may swing below the base line like they do on paper. Twenty-six cells, about thirty seconds each.
- Add the extras you care about. Capitals, digits, marks — all optional. Skipped capitals borrow your small letters automatically, which reads as charmingly informal rather than broken.
- Proof a sentence. The proof sheet typesets anything you type in your actual font, before any download. This is where you catch the 'g' that came out shy.
- Press and install. One button produces a real .otf. Double-click it on any computer and your handwriting joins the font menu, between Georgia and Helvetica, where it frankly belongs.
Drawing letters that hang together
craft notes from pressing a few alphabets
The trick to a font that feels like writing rather than a ransom note is consistency between letters, and three habits carry most of it. Respect the middle lines — the dashed x-height line is what makes your 'a' and 'o' agree on a size; letters that ignore it argue on the page. Keep one slant. Upright or leaning, either works; alternating doesn't, so glance at your previous letters in the tray as you go. Draw at your natural speed. Slow careful strokes produce stiff letters that don't look like anyone's hand — the smoothing will forgive a quick stroke's wobble far better than it can inject life into a traced one.
Set in honest type
what a drawn font can and can't carry
- every 'e' will be identical — a font repeats its letters exactly; the living variation of real handwriting is the one thing the format cannot hold
- uniform pen width — pressure-thick and thin strokes flatten to your chosen pen weight; pick bold for marker energy, fine for ballpoint
- no automatic cursive joins — this is a print-style font at heart; the joined-pairs tray lets you draw chosen pairs (th, ll…) as single shapes, but full connected cursive stays honestly out of reach
- saved in this browser, and in your pocket if you ask — work-in-progress lives in local storage, and "save manuscript" writes it to a file you keep; load that file here on any device to carry an alphabet from phone to computer or survive a cleared browser
- latin letters, generously — a–z, A–Z, 0–9, everyday marks, and the accent families: draw one ´ and every á é í ó ú ý is composed for you. Other alphabets remain on the wish pile
Asked at the counter
quick answers, no queue
Will é, ñ and ü work?
Draw the accent marks once — there are seven cells in the accents row — and the press composes the whole family: one ´ unlocks á é í ó ú ý and their capitals, a ¨ unlocks ä ë ï ö ü. The mark centres itself over each letter, rises for capitals, and on i the dot politely steps aside. Over fifty accented characters from seven small squiggles.
Can I make a font of someone else's handwriting?
Technically you'd trace their letters on the pad — it works, and for a late relative's writing it can be a genuinely moving keepsake. For a living person, ask first; it's their hand.
My letters look great alone but spaced oddly in the proof. Fix?
Side spacing comes from how wide you draw: a cramped 'm' or an 'i' drawn with wild flourishes inherits that width. Redraw the offenders — the proof sheet updates on the next press of proof, and two or three redraws usually settle a whole alphabet.
Can I sell a font I make here?
It's yours outright, so yes. Font marketplaces have their own quality bars about kerning and character coverage, but nothing here restricts you.
Does it work fully offline?
After the first visit, completely — drawing, proofing and pressing all happen locally, so the press works on a plane. Only the first page load needs a connection.
Phone or computer for the best result?
Draw on the phone or tablet (better strokes), press "save manuscript" to get a small file, move it over however you like, and load it on the computer to adjust spacing and press the font. The manuscript is just your strokes — it opens on any device, any time.
The side drawer
paper things and doorway guides that go with the press
Folios
longer reads from the type desk
Press log
what changed, newest first
- v1.3
- fourth pressing: the register — your own n and o ghost faintly under the pad while you draw, so every letter agrees with the ones already inked; proof chips for the pangram, the whole case, and accents abroad; a printable collection worksheet with the pad's guide lines, for hands that prefer real pens; and an install guide covering the two easy clicks, the fussy phones, and the honest won'ts.
- v1.2
- third pressing: the accents row — seven drawn marks compose over fifty characters (é à ü ñ ç and their families), centred automatically, raised for capitals, with the dot on i stepping aside; joined pairs — draw th, ch, ll, ff, tt or ee as one shape and real OpenType ligatures summon it when you type the letters; and the web counter — export an @font-face stylesheet with the font embedded, or a one-page specimen ready to share.
- v1.1
- second pressing: the spacing room — letters-apart and word-gap sliders plus a per-letter width dial, all reproofing live; save and load the manuscript as a file, so an alphabet survives cleared browsers and moves from phone to computer; a tracing desk that lays a photo of real handwriting faintly under the guides (never uploaded, never stored); and sixteen more marks in the tray — quotes, @, #, &, brackets, currency and friends.
- v1.0
- first pressing: guided pad with four typographic lines, 68-glyph tray with automatic capital fallback, three pen weights, stroke smoothing and round-cap outline expansion, live proof sheet via FontFace, real .otf export named after you, cross-sitting progress in local storage, offline PWA.