DIY Custom Blog Design Part 6: Custom Signature

This is Part 6 of a series of tutorials, if you need to start at the beginning, click here.

I have made my Custom Signature in Adobe Illustrator (Here is a Tutorial if you are interested), but if you don't have Illustrator, or you are just more of a Photoshop kinda girl (or guy).  That is fine too!  If you don't have either, you can use the free Paint.net, or My Live Signature.

I made my signature 175px Wide by 100px Tall, but remember this is custom :)  So once you have your signature made, upload it to your Photobucket account (Start at Part 1 if you need help there).

Making a Post Signature in Adobe Illustrator

I wanted to start this week off with a simple tutorial, so we are making a Custom Signature.  The fun thing about this tutorial, is that I am going to show you how to alter your font and so that your Signature can be even more personalized than just a cute font alone.  I am using Illustrator CS5, but you can use any version that you have (nothing in this tutorial requires CS5).

First I am going to make a new document.  I am sizing mine at 100px high by 175px wide.

Today's Featured Font Website: Sugar Frog Fonts

I love handwriting fonts, so naturally, I would have another handwriting font site to share!  Ellie and Ivy are the 2 that are behind "Sugar Frog Font", so give them some comment love and for all their hard work and making these fonts available to use for free.  They do offer them free for Commercial use, as long as you give them credit, but just check out their Terms of Use on the top of their website, and have fun using these fonts in your Custom Blog Designs!

Today's Featured Font Website: KevinandAmanda.com "Fonts for Peas"

I am really excited about today's font website, I love Amanda's fonts.  She offers free handwriting fonts and Scrapbooking fonts.  Check out the links below.





So I took a long shot and emailed Amanda, because I wanted to ask her a few questions about her fonts and how she got into making fonts.  I was so thrilled when she got back to me and answered my questions, so I hope you enjoy my mini interview with Amanda that is a mix of answers she gave me and some from her website.

6 Typography Freebies

Here are just a few freebies that I found, and thought that I would share for Typography week.  All freebies are available for Commercial Use, but like always, please check the designer's Terms of Use.  Enjoy!

1.  "Alice in Wonderland Drop Cap" from Lucky Palm

2.  "Free Victorian Graphic - Early Alphabet - Typography" from The Graphics Fairy

Todays Featured Font Website: Typodermic Fonts

I found Ray Larabie's website only last week, and I was amazed!  He is sooo talented.  He offers free fonts, and fonts that are available for purchase.  I am a sucker for free, but don't over look the stuff that he sells, it is quite affordable.

http://www.typodermic.com/index.html

Here is a link to his collection of Free fonts at MyFonts.com:

http://new.myfonts.com/foundry/Larabie/

20 Blog Designs for Typography Inspiration

I really hope you enjoy this collection that I put together.  These are in no particular order, I love them all for different reasons.  I hope it helps with your designs :)  

1.  create loves.

2.  Hippos & Dinosaurs designed by Freshly Squeezed Blog Designs

Today's Featured Font Website: Miss Tiina Fonts

Miss Tiina's website was a fairly new find for me, but a very pleasant find!  I have already featured her once for one of her digital freebies.  She offers free fonts that are ohhh so cute!  Please check her site out, I know you will love it! 

http://misstiina.com/fonts/

These are some of my favorite fonts from Miss Tiina:

Today's Featured Font Website: Font Squirrel

I LOVE font squirrel, it only showcases fonts that are 100% Free for Commercial Use.  It is a nice clean simple website too, so easy to get around and use.

Here are just a few of my favorite fonts that I have downloaded from Font Squirrel:

Kicking off Typography Week!

 Image Credit: Designed by Mo Lara

I am sooo excited about this week! 

Reason #1:  I LOVE typography, always have, always will.  I think my love for Typography really began with my first design class in college, it was a typography class at Southern Utah University with Mr. Brimmer.  It was fantastic, he could talk about typefaces with enthusiasm for hours. 

Reason #2:  I have done some serious digging and found some really cool stuff to share!  I am going to give you a featured Free Font Website every day this week as well as a list of a few more for Saturday.  I have some nice inspiration for you as well as a few tutorials.  So please give me your feedback throughout the week, I hope you enjoy it, and find it useful.

Next Week is..... TYPOGRAPHY WEEK!

Because I have SOO many great things that I want to post about and I am so scattered about doing so, I really thought it would be fun to theme my weeks here on Makin' Cute Blogs.  So look forward to tons of inspiration and new freebies for Typography Week.

**If you have anything as a designer that inspires you with typography, please leave me a link in a comment and maybe I can include it next week.