...a look at a unique type font, and the story behind it.
If you've ever dipped a quill into lettering enamel, you'll really appreciate our next cameo. If you haven't — you should!
When I read the description for a font file on AOL, I knew this had to be something unique. It was! And, what a great story to include in our fonts issue.
Pat Snyder is a former sign maker who is currently teaching high school advanced art classes and year book DTPublishing. His formal education came from the masters at the Ringling School of Art, in Florida, and was followed by a Bachelors and Masters Degree in Art from Northern Illinois University.
Pat Snyder, author of "SnyderSpeed"
DT&G: Pat, thank you for joining us today. I’ve selected your SnyderSpeed and the MarkerFelt Font series as among my top shareware font products.
You have a great story to tell about SnyderSpeed. Since a lot of my involvement in the graphic arts industry, (and in the pages of DT&G,) is with Desktop Signmaking, and since we’re interviewing Emerson Schwartzkopf in this issue, I just had to pass along the SnyderSpeed story. How did it come to be created?
Snyder: Well Fred, my now 86-year old father, Ervin Snyder was a sign painter for 50-plus years. Near retirement, he taught me his many hand lettered alphabet styles; among them was one he called the sign painter’s “bread and butter” alphabet: Speed-brush lettering. “It’s the one that pays the bills and brings profits,” he said.
After infinite hours of practice applying paint to brush, and brush to rolls of banner paper while learning to recreate all letters and symbols in sizes from one-inch up to two-foot high letters, this particular alphabet/typeface served well while operating a sign business during the 70s.
Since this brush stroke was my first attempt at creating a memorized sign-painting alphabet for use on a computer, I named it after my father. Hence, SnyderSpeed. But I must add that it was my wife who dared me to try and apply my hand lettering skills for use on her Mac in 1990. She bought me Fontographer as a Christmas present. Up to that point I’d never yet used a Mac.
 
She was a font hungry newspaper editor who claimed she couldn’t find the “Snyder Family” brush stroke look she craved for ads and feature display copy...couldn’t find it at anywhere, at any price. Well, I took her up on the dare and it’s been three years and 11 fonts later.
DT&G: Have you heard from any sign-makers who are using your fonts?
Snyder: Yes, from several sign-makers, but mostly from print media people, graphic artists and designers all over the world. My fonts SnyderSpeed, MarkerFeltThin, MarkerFeltWide and MarkerFinePoint continue to be “bread and butter” fonts. They’re the fonts most DTPers register and when registering, they often send samples of their work, showing the font's use and tell me how the font/s help their business or solve design problems. I show users’ works to my high school students, so they can see what today’s current DTPers and graphic artists are really doing on computers in the real world.
DT&G: While teaching full time, how do you find time to design fonts and where do you get your ideas?
Snyder: As I said SnyderSpeed came from taking a dare, but it took me nearly 300 hours to complete and only all caps with a few punctuation marks. I worked a few hours each weekend and throughout a summer. Then as people registered it, they requested additional characters and/or lower case. So I updated it, adding lower case, 40 more characters and re-releasing it. All my fonts are created in snatches of time on weekends and summers. Some fonts, like OregonWet, were created just to see if it could be done on a computer. I had the idea of trying to see if I could create a font that instantly communicated the graphic message of “wet.” Each character is surrounded by slashes or droplets of water. I actually have more ideas for fonts than I have time to create them.
DT&G: Does it still take 300 hours to complete a font?
Snyder: More like 200, depending on the design. I’ve now mastered Fontographer. I first letter an alphabet by hand, then scan each letter as a graphic and copy and paste them into Fontographer’s character slots. Next, I tediously place points to create font outlines, trying to achieve the least points possible. I never use the auto tracing feature, as it puts too many points on characters making a font file too huge in terms of memory. After that I work on kerning and do test printings at 72 points. All font imperfections show up at that size or larger! When satisfied with the quality, I release the font.
DT&G: Your MarkerFelt fonts which look like hand lettering with thin, wide and finepoint marking pens are also well done. How did you decide to make them?
Snyder: Over the years, people often ask me at school or in organizations I belong to, to make them “quick” posters or bulletin board notices. Knowing I have good hand lettering skills, they want something eye-catching and quick. To save me time, I decided to convert my felt marker skills to computer fonts. With those fonts now also on school computers, anyone, even students can make their own posters and notices, rather than asking me to do the hand lettering. I then, of course, released them as shareware.
 
DT&G: Do you have any advice or
comments for readers regarding
font selection or usage in designs
or layouts?
Snyder: I’d have to tell them
what I teach my students:
• Don’t go font crazy. By that I mean, ads or feature page layouts shouldn’t contain more than three different font styles. Use fonts as part of the design; carefully choose a font that expresses the main message;
• don’t let a font overpower the rest of the design or message.
• Don’t go wild by capitalizing, bolding, underlining and italicizing every other word. Good display fonts, used properly as part of the design, are already strong enough to carry a message.
• Don’t make a layout messy by jazzing up a perfectly good, readable font to the point of where it’s hard to read and the layout looks overly busy and/or too “artsy.”
DT&G: Sounds like good basic advice to me. Pat. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and ideas with us.
Snyder: Thanks Fred. I also want to thank those who support shareware. Their support motivates me to continue providing quality fonts at modest prices. Satisfied users also help spread the word about my fonts.
[Pat Snyder can be reached on AOL at RPS82, CompuServe, 76307, 2431 or by writing direct at: 1797 Ross Inlet Rd., Coos Bay, OR 97420. His fonts include: SnyderSpeed, MarkerFeltThin, MarkerFeltWide, MarkerFinePoint, ComicsCarToon, StarsAndStripes, OregonWet, OregonDry, SavesAndSales, BrushStrokeFast and NeedlePointSew. His fonts have been featured several times in Aldus Magazine; and purchased by Fontographer’s Altsys Corp. and CE Software for use in ad campaigns.]
