Font Selection for Vinyl Lettering.

[NikGrey]

I have spent a while now trying to work out a good collection of fonts to include in my shiney new 'Lettering Tool' (yet to be opened to the public).

I dont want to include too many fonts, just the ones that are well suited to Vinyl Signage - My fonts will start at 30mm (as small than that will be a beast to weed) and go up to 500mm probably.

Quite often I have seen people say that 'Serif' fonts are a nightmare as the serifs are the first part to peel so may want to avoid those.

I have a tool which allows the user to input the desired text, select colour - reverse cut - size (and italic, bold, bold italic)

Well, heres a screenshot so you can get the idea:




Does anybody have a list of fonts that would lend themselves to this type of thing ?

I know a lot of you have been in the business for a long time so may be able to save me a lot of time with this.

[Skye]

Hi Nik,

I have only cut lettering to the customer's specification, so I haven't thought about it from this viewpoint.

A word of caution, though. Like images, fonts are copyrighted. The fonts offered need to be either free for commercial use or ones you have bought the commercial license for.

Karen

[NikGrey]

This is what is worrying me, I could have a huge list of fonts and be a sitting duck for anyone who is after people using fonts for commercial use they are not supposed to. Like all of us I have thousands of fonts.. lol, I suppose fonts will be a nightmare.

It's not like I can even ask a competitor.. to be honest if someone asked me I would be helpful though.

[Skye]

Check the fonts with fontsquirrel.com
All the fonts here are labelled as 100% free for commercial use. Still be worth checking the license attached to the fonts you pick.

There are plenty of fonts to choose from there & the search has good classifications. To start with I think I'd pick one from each classification on the "less is more" principle. Customers like choice - but more options doesn't always convert to more sales.

Have fun choosing the fonts.......................

[NikGrey]

Thanks a great find, thanks very much - I can find everything I need there

[NikGrey]

It's been at least Three months since I decided to start this business - the 'Easy' part was my website.

I engaged a 'Developer' to make this simple tool (An Indian One) and it has been a 'Roller Coaster' to be polite..

The 'Tool' (Not the 'Developer') was almost ready a couple of weeks ago when I noticed the '£' symbol didn't work.. I thought this would be an easy fix but alas, NO (as far as the Tool is concerned - no, I meant the 'Developer').

Ere it is.

I have another chap making another tool for me (FANTASTIC FELLA) and in passing I mentioned the problem I am having with the 'Tool' (I'm sure you get the Gist by now) - anyway, about ten minutes later I get a reply from the chap saying "I had a look, and fixed it" - I was OVER THE BLOODY MOON...

It was not his job but he managed to fix something that the Tool Man had been spending weeks on.

I learned a valuable lesson here, Don't try and use the wrong Tool for a job.

[FutureProject]

Buy cheap, buy twice isn't just for hardware. As a web developer I've lost lots of potential clients to cheaper overseas developers and I've also gained many who have been left with inflexible, inappropriate or unusable websites/software built by the cheaper guys.

As for fonts more is not always better, give your customers too many decisions and they often won't make them (I had a sticker site with over 10,000 designs to choose from, people would spend hours looking and then dissapear, presumably they thought I'll come back later or I'll have a think, I reduced it to about 1,000 and got a much better conversion)

Think of the font groups and have no more than 2 from each, include horrendous fonts such as comic sans and jokerman, they are fonts non designers love and that unfortunately is your target market.

[Paul]

Nick, I tried your tool and is working like a dream! but... what is this for? i added to cart but this didnt appeared on a mug or something. so what this is or? sorry if this is stupid question :redface:

[arko]

As I understand it Paul, its for working out the cost for a customer that wishes to purchase vinyl cut lettering of their choice with a certain font, size and colour.... so for example the wording.. Hello DSF in white, 30mm high (auto length) and the font Trebuchet would cost £2.25.

[arko]

As I understand it Paul, its for working out the cost for a customer that wishes to purchase vinyl cut lettering of their choice with a certain font, size and colour.... so for example the wording.. Hello DSF in white, 30mm high (auto length) and the font Trebuchet would cost £2.25.