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"
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!
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/