Yesterday Carmen left a comment about a couple of fonts we all might be interested, the one shown above which is free (but only for this week!) and one I think we have mentioned before a sweet, script that is currently at a deep discount.  I’ll be honest I don’t download a lot of free fonts, I feel like it slows down my computer and a font that’s not created for professional output can be very frustrating to use, but for personal projects why the heck not? I really like what typography enthusiast Kaffer is doing, I think you might like it too, visit his blog-Fox & Firefly for some nice looking fonts he has created, the graphics alone would serve as good specimens to reference when you are doing your lettering practice, I am always on the look out for good specimens!

Here are some other fonts that may be of interest to you that are not free but definitely budget friendly. They all have a hand-lettered feel to them. If you are trying your hand at lettering, as mentioned above it’s always nice to have a specimen to reference, type out words with the fonts you admire so you can see how they connect, the spacing and try different sizes print out and then practice away! This little tip has helped me immensely when I am doing my own lettering practice. Here are some fonts that I think you may like:

Hand-painted font (it has nice gradiations in it for an authentic feel)

Loving the cross bars on her lowercase ‘t’s’ on this one!

A femme hipster serif

A mono-weight very hipster-esque script

After a week of stress dreams on my part, (I’ve been dreaming that my teethe were falling out), and talking in her sleep on Michelle’s part our day has finally arrived!  My daughter woke at 4:30 a.m., my husband got her ready for an early morning stroll (and strong coffee), I put on a huge guilty pleasure on Pandora-The Hall & Oates station, and got down to bid’ness working on the finishing touches on this labor of love and it really has been.  I think I should step back a bit and explain that I started on my lettering journey at a time when there wasn’t much information nor any classes on the internet, nor were there many local classes teaching traditional calligraphy. I started sharing what I was doing and others responded enthusiastically. Then I read that school’s were getting rid of their cursive curriculum and I went on an all out campaign to make sure the art of lettering did not die out, it would be like the end of paper books, it was unthinkable. Cut to today and I do believe I succeeded in my efforts, there are many, many readers that picked up calligraphy and lettering after visiting, many becoming professional lettering artists, there are so many on-line and live classes that you wouldn’t be wont for one, there are books galore, forums, my goodness it’s a movement and I am proud to have played a small part in it. When Michelle and I sat down to develop an easy way for lettering artists to get their lettering ready for the web I don’t think we anticipated the Herculean task ahead of us. Last night after we did our final tweaks and with hearts pumping moved our Letter Rx | Paper to pixel from ‘prototype’ to ‘final files for market’ there was definitely a euphoric sense of accomplishment.Read More

When we were making post suggestions for the week, I mentioned to Michelle that we hadn’t done an ‘around here’ post in forever so here it is…

This week I had an epic panic when I thought our site was down, I 911’d Lindsay our coder and she checked that everything was just fine–phew! She gave me this link so I can check it in the future.

My friend Whitney is learning French the easy way, she’s using this company and I think I might start too!

I have a not so secret obsession with The Walking Dead (yes, zombies!) I finally got Michelle to watch and I feel such victory. To me the story is about never giving up and I love that theme. My husband and I just finished the last season and now I am a bit bereft of what to binge watch now, any suggestions?

Michelle and I are getting ready for our launch of our newest action set for lettering artists, it should be finished and ready to launch on May 5th, it’s time for a happy dance. Be the first to know when it’s in the shop!

I stumbled across what seems to be a pretty vibrant writing community with workshops, interviews with published authors and general writing encouragement (I want to take their grammar refresher course).

Maybelle suggested the Being Boss podcast.  I haven’t listened yet, but I am sure it’s a good one.

With high hopes I tried this new hydro-boost gel-cream for extra dry skin, spoiler it didn’t work for me, but it turned out to be a great primer!

If you haven’t already, you need to check out the comments from yesterday’s question- Is there a book you would recommend that has inspired you to go out and do/make something? I am chomping at the bit to explore every one of the suggestions!

Thank you for your visits and encouragement this week, it’s always so appreciated!

Michelle and I are dedicated to the idea of being as transparent as possible on the blog about our processes, we love sharing what we learned and to share both our failures and successes in the hopes that it gives you a shortcut to the latter. We are learning as we go along on our new venture and thought we would address the mailing list for anyone that has one now or is considering one for their business. We created ours with the idea of happy + useful mail in mind, we didn’t want spam email or used car salesman-esque emails urging you to buy, buy, buy, we wanted our list recipients to get an email from us and be excited, it’s something on the forefront of our minds when we send out our free Photoshop action for the month. Yes, we decided to create and giveaway a free premium action each month with no strings attached. Of course this is all new to us, we have only been doing this for a couple months but so far we feel it’s been a very good way to build not only a rapport with our potential clients but thank our existing ones that are on our list. When I do Besotted Brand emails I never send out an email with a sale unless it’s a good one and by good I mean 50% or more off. I know how annoyed I get with constant emails from brands that I often just immediately delete or unsubscribe. What if a brand actually has something that was worthwhile (and free shipping qualifies especially if you have overseas customers) well then, that’s different, right? When I do my sales it’s worth more to me in the time period I get sales then spamming my customers daily or weekly with meager percentages off. Time is money, always try to reach out to your customers in a way that would make you excited and move you if you were the one on the receiving end of the email. Do the other ways work, the pummel the email subscriber until they either submit or unsubscribe? I think it is a model that can work, but it is truly awful. I am no mailing list expert but I do know what I like. Also, in full confession here I do subscribe to some lists because I love to see what they’ll come up with next design/photography wise even though I am not a consumer (like Bhldn and Terrain).

So back to the our freebie for May! Both Michelle and I have been daydreaming about sun drenched locales lately (that will happen coming out of a Seattle winter). This image was taken in Los Angeles when I lived there and when I pulled it up the other night I felt like it didn’t convey the feeling of when I shot it, there was a vibrance and ‘joie de vivre’ missing that I wanted to convey, where was the magic of that moment? It needed a little technicolor and therein began the creation of this Photoshop action ‘aqua skies’ where you can paint on the blue in your image and transform it to a beautiful aqua in a swift click. We made it for skies, but it would work beautifully on bodies of water, eyes (use a subtle hand), clothes, etc. You’ll need to sign-up for the mailing list here to get it for May, but don’t worry if you want to unsubscribe immediately after that’s your prerogative (of course we would miss you dearly).

So tell us, do you have a mailing list now?  Do you have any tips + tricks that work for you that you are willing to share? If you have signed up for mailing lists what keeps you subscribed?