Love Letters was a biweekly brew of font-focused briefs for creatives craving handcrafted vintage and retro type, tips and tools — made by real, live humans with paper, pencils and pens (and coffee.) It was a longer-than-a-lungo read but usually not by much — somewhere between a cappuccino and a green tea. The Fonts Café site is a bit wonky these days so some of the links point to their MyFonts pages.
A man was walking along a beach one day and noticed a boy picking something up and gently throwing it into the ocean. Approaching the boy, he asked, “What are you doing?”
— Loren Eiseley
The youth replied, “Throwing starfish back into the ocean. The tide is going out and if I don’t throw them back, they’ll die.”
“Son,” the man said, “don’t you realize there are miles and miles of beach and hundreds and hundreds of starfish? You can’t make a difference!”
After listening politely, the boy bent down, picked up another starfish, and threw it back into the surf. Then, smiling at the man, he said, “I made a difference for that one.”
We produce this newsletter every couple of weeks to thank each and every one of you for buying our independent font foundry’s type and graphics; to help you find creative ways to mix and match typefaces; to stretch your design budget with freebies; to save you time with templates and tools; and to boost you ahead of your competition with creative events and connections.
Each of you is the “one” we try to make a difference for. (I know I said I’d never end a sentence with a preposition but…)
…that’s how the abbreviated “Star Thrower” story got the headline position in this issue of Love Letters.
Here’s hoping your Valentine’s Day doodling is almost a wrap and that your Mother’s Day and Father’s Day designs are on the whiteboard.
If you’re in a pinch for the former, download our free, “My Valentine’s Love” font full of graphic elements in the Fonts Cafe subscriber area or,
- skip down to preview Voluptate Pack for Mother’s Day and,
- zoom into our featured Bold Pressing for Father’s Day.
… and if you’re one of our “down under” subscribers where it’s already tomorrow — Happy Australia Day!
You can make a ONE in 1.2 TRILLION DIFFERENCE
January 2004
Kodak announced that the paradigm shift to digital photography was behind its decision to cease production of traditional 35mm cameras.
August 2017
… fast forward thirteen years … an estimated 1.2 trillion digital photos were taken last year.
January 2018
With just one of those 1,200,000,000,000 snapshots, a dash of art, a splash of soul and a vintage Fonts Café Handmade Fancy Frame you can make someone feel special — no Red Letter Day required.
It takes a lot more than just turning your socks outside out and putting the seat down to be a star on Mother’s Day. And you also need to do more than select some text, make it italic and paste 😍 after “to infinity and beyond” in the P.S.
[drum roll]
Voluptate to the rescue!
Not only does this voluptuously curvy classic script font have a sexy Italian-sounding name, when you order the Voluptate bundle you save almost 20% (full desktop licenses for up to two PCs) and get the original version plus the classic variation and a set of frames, flourishes and eminently feminine graphics that positively polish wedding, girls’ nights out and birthday invitations.
You still have 142 days until the third Sunday in June, which is Father’s Day in many countries including Afghanistan and Zimbabwe (both of which are home to zero starfish) to use any of the fonts or graphic elements in the Bold Pressing Bundle. But you have to hustle if you’re in Andorra, Angola, Belgium, Bolivia, Croatia, Honduras, Italy, Liechtenstein, Mozambique, Portugal, Spain or Switzerland where Father’s Day is March 19th.
Ed: That is sooo confusing — no wonder aliens don’t bother landing on this planet — hmm … unless maybe they have and they’re disguised as starfish.
You’ll find a complete index to the Fonts Café typefaces, graphics, elements, icons and colours in this, Art & Soul Edition of Love Letters on its Ingredients page on our website. Yum!