Summer needs to hurry the heck up. For me it means weekend trips to the beach to join Jim surfing. Though it is cold outside that doesn’t deter him from hitting the waves or the web to search out the latest in the surfing community. I don’t surf. Not yet. But I do love the overwhelming exposure I get to surf art and culture through him. Everything I learn about it from resin tinting to surf films directly influences my web design, and I hope to feature it more here in the next few months. Not only do I find the art of surfing inspiring but the overall attitude is too.

This evening Jim showed me a board by Tyler Warren that is just stunning. I got so intrigued that I looked up more of his work. At only 21 years of age Tyler is a fluid surfer and has a unique surf art design style.

Check out Tyler’s Work Here at his Website
Most of this info was found via Surfy Surfy a fantastic blog about surfing.

It’s not quite as limey as the Photoshop picker... but brilliant!

I found Fontifier via swissmiss the other day and thought to myself “this has to be too good to be true” when I saw it was only 9 bucks to create your own font. According to their site

Fontifier lets you use your own handwriting for the text you write on your computer. It turns a scanned sample of your handwriting into a handwriting font that you can use in your word processor or a graphics program, just like regular fonts such as Helvetica.

For 9 dollars this is a great deal, but isn’t for those trying to create a pristine font. The upload size limit is 100 dpi for your letters causing jagged edges in the final product. The more detailed your letters are the more obvious the edges become. When using the font in Illustrator it does work like a charm, but the poor quality of the scan in is amplified when going much larger than 30 points. I recomend using Fontifier when are looking for a way to give a website design a little more of a personal touch. I love it when you see people who take the time to hand draw their own fonts for the web!
At the end of the process you get to name your font. I wanted to come up with something that sounded “fonty”. I am working at a birch veneer Ikea desk… and “veneer” sounded fonty so I present “Bad Ass Veneer”. Yeah, creative juices are really flowing today.. I know.

Want to try my font? Download Bad Ass Veneer here… for free! Use it as you wish.