Marker Felt Alternative and License

darkandlong12 March 2009 · 07:49

Hi,

Working on a website that needs a clear hand-written-style font, easily readable at smaller ( < 14pt) sizes. Marker Felt fits the bill, though I'm personally not a fan. I was wondering if anyone could answer the following questions...

1. Marker Felt comes packaged with my OS (OSX), but I can't seem to find any licensing information associated with it, and have found earlier versions available in numerous places for free / donation. Apple don't seem to offer it for sale and neither do any of the major internet font sellers. So how does my use of it stand? Can I use it for free?

2. If anyone has any alternatives to Marker Felt they think I might prefer, I would appreciate it.

Thanks a lot.

Stephen Coles12 March 2009 · 07:56

These are my favorite clear handwriting fonts.

Si_Daniels13 March 2009 · 12:25

>Working on a website

How are you planning to use the font - graphics, Flash, sifr?

Cheers, Si

aluminum13 March 2009 · 13:07

If aiming for the marker aesthetic, Mark Simonson's Felt Tip series is nice:

http://www.ms-studio.com/FontSales/felttiproman.html

darkandlong15 March 2009 · 12:29

Hi,

Thanks for your replies…

@Stephen - Thanks for the suggestions.

@sii - Will be sifr (or similar) and maybe a graphic or two. Are you thinking the embedding will be a liscencing issue?

@aluminium - Felt Tip is nice, but a little bit too scribbly for my purposes. It needs to be clean and consistant. Problem is that most of the handwritten fonts I've looked at are a little bit too handwritten (I know that probably sounds absurd).

B3N23 March 2009 · 15:50

Have a look at some of the sassoon typefaces. Maybe not 100% 'handwritten' but they are very good. I was going to make a 'clean' handwritten typeface until I found this, it's basically exactly as I had imagined.
http://www.fonts-online.com/fonts/Sassoon-font/2728.html

Craig Eliason24 March 2009 · 13:49

I dream of releasing my attempt at such a face someday. Not done yet but I'd be curious to know if it fits what you're picturing.

Si_Daniels24 March 2009 · 17:17

>Will be sifr (or similar) and maybe a graphic or two. Are you thinking the embedding will be a liscencing issue?

In the absence of guidance from Apple - last time I checked they don't have a font specific section in their EULA - I would say that web graphics are fine, sifr may be borderline. You could always try asking them.

lauren d.25 March 2009 · 04:43

In the drafting world (at least for lighting designers), the LegibleAtSmallSizeCleanHandwritten choice has become Graphite.
Granted, it's more pencil-y than marker-y.
I have also always been a fan of F. Storm's Compur.

darkandlong21 April 2009 · 03:17

@ B3N

Thanks for those. Nice, but as you said, not really handwritten.

@ eliason

I like that a lot. Especially at a smaller size.

@ sii

Emailed them and got no response. Contacted the guy who designed it and got no response from him either.

@ lauren d.

Thanks for the suggestions. I think Graphite has too much modulation. Compur is kind of close but caps only.

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