So at first I misunderstood your tool, thinking it was like a tool I made a little over a year ago that creates new fonts from existing font glyph paths, combining them in a couple of ways. It began as an ambigram generator (png image) using an arbitrary ttf or woff of your choosing and once I had that working, I realized that since I was just transforming vector paths, I could mix paths from multiple fonts, still focusing on ambigram generation.
Eventually, scope crept until it became an interesting and useful thing to be able to combine say, the top half of Arial with the bottom half of Times New Roman's letters (and combine with various boolean operations on the paths, with outlines, etc, and I assumed others would be as pleased with this ability as I was, so I documented some examples and shared it here and in a fontography subreddit.
To my surprise, it got essentially no interest when I posted here, and the response from the typography folks was basically negative with people somehow framing it as a piracy-adjacent thing, and not a fun thing to do, just mashing up vector paths to get interesting unique results. shrug
Seems like you and maybe some other participants in this discussion might actually appreciate this little tool and get some enjoyment and perhaps utility out of it, so I'll share it here.
<a href="https://github.com/scottvr/fambigen" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/scottvr/fambigen
There are examples in the README that show what it does in ambigram mode or "font compositor" mode. Enjoy!
Your tool looks interesting but the readme file is very "wall of text" heavy and example light. In comparison the site for this tool shows exactly what it does. Perhaps that explains the difference in response. This is a classic case of the need for "show don't tell".
Sounds reasonable. I have a marketing problem. To restate what I get from your and other comments:
If I really want to spread something that brings me joy to other people so that they might experience it too, I may have to resort to polishing up the presentation. The fact that I'm trying to give something with no strings does not obviate the need to make it look palatable. This is a reasonable take I think. I also think I've known and have had a sense for that, even if I try to ignore it, because "selling" something is typically uninteresting to me. I'll try to keep it in mind the next time I have something I think I want to share with strangers, and put more effort into how it is presented so they might be more inclined to look into the actual thing I'm trying to show them.
I'll make my own analogy, with it being like trying to share a chocolate cake that looks like literal turds to strangers.
> I may have to resort to polishing up the presentation. The fact that I'm trying to give something with no strings does not obviate the need to make it look palatable.
People say shit like this when they're the producer. But then turn around and nitpick when they're the consumer.
It's not selling something, it's about it being a proxy for if you understand the product well enough to communicate it's key points.
To wrongly quote Twain: "I would have written a shorter letter, but did not have the time"
I don't think we disagree, but the shape of your message confuses me a little. "People say shit like this..." "if you understand the product well enough to communicate..." "then turn around and nitpick", these things read to me as a pretty harsh indictment and a claim about something I did or do.
What I think I said was that the comments made me realize that it is not enough to make something cool, tell people you made something cool, and expect them to figure out why it is cool with a minimalist, slightly ugly demo page, and that is I really want other people to be able to experience the joy I did, I'll have to take more time on the presentation of the documentation so they immediately see with little effort why they might want to try it. So then the choice for me becomes "how much do I care if something I made will bring a stranger joy?", and spend the appropriate amount of time on that marketing or "selling" angle.
For this particular project after the initial response, my interest shifted to "hmm, curious that these folks focused more on some alleged copyright or theft angle" and I lost interest in sharing it with people. Until I saw this conversation and thought I'd mention the previous experience, and the comment you replied to was me stating what I think I learned from the comments here.
Your "communicate its key points" is in line with what I took away from these comments, but the "shit like this and then nitpick" seems a bit hostile, to the point where I'm not even sure it is directed at me.
Sorry for the brutal honesty, just thought it might offer you an explanation of the difference in reaction.
OP's fonts look ugly, but intentionally and purposefully so, in a nails-on-chalkboard manner. In contrast, your example images just look plain ugly to me, can't imagine I would have any use for them.
Sorry again. I do understand the technological fascination with the process, just describing the aestheticity of the result here.
Thanks for the specificity. I may eventually redo the README to be more palatable. I've realized I tend to make assumptions about how much "wall of text" people are willing to climb without knowing anything about the content, the writer's style, etc - that is, whether it will have been worth their time to read, and historically have made little effort to make it look inviting or otherwise give them a reason to read, leading to "nope." and clicking away. This is good stuff to remember, as even if I never revisit the fambigen README, I do have other newer things I'd like to generate discussion about, so I'll need to remember these lessons.
The difference is that today's tool has a demo website that makes the whole thing self-explanatory. Yours is a repository that speaks "figure it out".
This comment comes off as unnecessarily negative. They didn’t say they were mad that it didn’t get interest, and just shared it in case it may find an audience here. If you’re actually intending to give constructive advice rather than to discourage them or make them feel bad, there may have been a better way to say that.
ycombiredd · · focus · HN ↗
Eventually, scope crept until it became an interesting and useful thing to be able to combine say, the top half of Arial with the bottom half of Times New Roman's letters (and combine with various boolean operations on the paths, with outlines, etc, and I assumed others would be as pleased with this ability as I was, so I documented some examples and shared it here and in a fontography subreddit.
To my surprise, it got essentially no interest when I posted here, and the response from the typography folks was basically negative with people somehow framing it as a piracy-adjacent thing, and not a fun thing to do, just mashing up vector paths to get interesting unique results. shrug
Seems like you and maybe some other participants in this discussion might actually appreciate this little tool and get some enjoyment and perhaps utility out of it, so I'll share it here. <a href="https://github.com/scottvr/fambigen" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/scottvr/fambigen
There are examples in the README that show what it does in ambigram mode or "font compositor" mode. Enjoy!
paulhebert · · focus · HN ↗
ycombiredd · · focus · HN ↗
amoss · · focus · HN ↗
ycombiredd · · focus · HN ↗
If I really want to spread something that brings me joy to other people so that they might experience it too, I may have to resort to polishing up the presentation. The fact that I'm trying to give something with no strings does not obviate the need to make it look palatable. This is a reasonable take I think. I also think I've known and have had a sense for that, even if I try to ignore it, because "selling" something is typically uninteresting to me. I'll try to keep it in mind the next time I have something I think I want to share with strangers, and put more effort into how it is presented so they might be more inclined to look into the actual thing I'm trying to show them.
I'll make my own analogy, with it being like trying to share a chocolate cake that looks like literal turds to strangers.
preommr · · focus · HN ↗
People say shit like this when they're the producer. But then turn around and nitpick when they're the consumer.
It's not selling something, it's about it being a proxy for if you understand the product well enough to communicate it's key points.
To wrongly quote Twain: "I would have written a shorter letter, but did not have the time"
Abstract_Typist · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/shorter-letter/" rel="nofollow">https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/shorter-letter/
ycombiredd · · focus · HN ↗
What I think I said was that the comments made me realize that it is not enough to make something cool, tell people you made something cool, and expect them to figure out why it is cool with a minimalist, slightly ugly demo page, and that is I really want other people to be able to experience the joy I did, I'll have to take more time on the presentation of the documentation so they immediately see with little effort why they might want to try it. So then the choice for me becomes "how much do I care if something I made will bring a stranger joy?", and spend the appropriate amount of time on that marketing or "selling" angle.
For this particular project after the initial response, my interest shifted to "hmm, curious that these folks focused more on some alleged copyright or theft angle" and I lost interest in sharing it with people. Until I saw this conversation and thought I'd mention the previous experience, and the comment you replied to was me stating what I think I learned from the comments here.
Your "communicate its key points" is in line with what I took away from these comments, but the "shit like this and then nitpick" seems a bit hostile, to the point where I'm not even sure it is directed at me.
Thanks for the comment though.
aargh_aargh · · focus · HN ↗
Sorry for the brutal honesty, just thought it might offer you an explanation of the difference in reaction.
OP's fonts look ugly, but intentionally and purposefully so, in a nails-on-chalkboard manner. In contrast, your example images just look plain ugly to me, can't imagine I would have any use for them.
Sorry again. I do understand the technological fascination with the process, just describing the aestheticity of the result here.
brettermeier · · focus · HN ↗
Barbing · · focus · HN ↗
Essentially mirroring the original post, but using the fonts of their own [re]design.
ycombiredd · · focus · HN ↗
dostick · · focus · HN ↗
xp84 · · focus · HN ↗
Edit: such as amoss’s comment.