Daniel Zadorozny
Dan is a bred native of Philadelphia, but is now a Texan. Read more of his bios below.
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So tell us a bit about yourself. |
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My fonts and the Iconian website are a labor of love. By trade, I'm a commercial transaction attorney for a large information technology services company. But I have always been somewhat artistic and drawn to graphics. When I got my first PC some eight years ago, I was instantly fascinated with truetype fonts. Over the years I collected them. Eventually I learned how to make my own fonts, and eventually after that I learned how to make a simple web page. While I do have a job, and a life - a newborn baby girl actually - I've continued to make the time to continuously work on my fonts. I enjoy it, and that's reason enough to work at it. I have a wonderful wife, whose patience with me has been awesome while this ongoing project consumes my free time. Some wives are golf widows; mine is a font widow. Most recently, my wife and I have become the proud parents of our first daughter. My fonts are free for any non-commercial use, because philosophically I believe that the free exchange of art is just as important to a society as the free exchange of information. However, if you like any of the fonts, or you use them somewhere, please e-mail me and let me know. That's why I'm doing this... so that I can spot my fonts being used out there. For commercial uses, just contact me and we can always work something out - I'm pretty easygoing that way. |
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What was the first font you created? And what other fonts have you designed? |
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Testing the bounds of my memory already, eh? My first font that was made generally available on the Internet was Terra Firma. It was before I had my own site, so that along with a few other of my early ones were posted by Fonts & Things. Since then I've had my own site and at this time have just over 250 fonts available for download. |
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What attract or drive you to design fonts? |
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My fascination with how the endless combinations of the same basic characters can be worked and re-worked over and over again to make new typefaces of the same alphabet. And the end product lets my work be used by anyone for any project that uses language. |
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How long have you been creating fonts? |
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About 4 years now, though about 15 years ago I played around with making bitmap/dot matrix fonts on my now antique Commodore 64. |
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Who first introduced you to font creation and how did it come about? |
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Thinking at first I had talent to be a graphic artist (not), I took a liking to fonts as a great tool for headings and logos, etc. Then I found Ray Larabie's stuff and I was hooked - a bona fide fontoholic. Then I went from collecting fonts to making my own. At the time I had very little resources (i.e. money) and the only software available was super expensive. Then Softy came along and everything changed - for the first time there was an affordable product that would let me make my own fonts. I use FontLab now, but I wouldn't be into font-making if it wasn't initially for Softy. |
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Is there anyone in the font industry that you admire? If yes, who is it and what do you admire about him or her? |
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There are so many, each with an aspect that makes them unique. Ray Larabie first and foremost for his great range and imagination coupled with his amazing productivity (he just cranked out one beauty after another). Derek Vogelpohl (aka ShyFonts) for creating what to me were the best quality/best looking free fonts on the Net (and for helping Iconian Fonts move out of its infancy). Nate Piekos at Blambot for redefining comic book lettering fonts on the Internet. And CybaPee at TypOasis for her wonderful artistry and the sheer magnitude of her enthusiasm for the font community. |
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What brand of coffee do you drink? |
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Tangueray. |
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Can you tell us about your font design process and how do you approach it ? |
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A lot of my fonts are based on what I call a "base glyph" system. I create a circular or rectangular box with a crosshair and from that base glyph extrapolate the rest of the characters. The creativity is really in the first glyph then, and it's good to mess with some of the letters to give the font a nice touch, but I find this method allows for very clean typefaces that have a high degree of consistency between the characters. The other method is to go completely freehand and scan the sample into the PC. |
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What softwares/resources do you use when creating your fonts? |
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I primarily use the FontLab and Font Creator programs. For several fonts, I rely on my trusty scanner to scan in alphabets I write out into font format via ScanFont. |
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What suggestions/advices can you pass onto someone who might be interested in getting involve in font creation? |
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Before you buy the more expensive font creating programs, I'd advise starting with Softy or another less expensive program (like Font Creator) to start with. It'd be a shame to invest a lot of money if you decided not to stick with it. The less expensive programs have less features, but they're great to learn on and lets you practice and evolve until you decide to drop the big money on a full-featured app. The other advice is to practice practice practice - working with the shapes and getting what you want can be frustrating at first, so hang in there and just keep playing. |
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Are there any good online website(s) that you use for inspiration? |
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As far as websites, not really. But for inspiration I look everywhere. We are surrounded by basic letter shapes everywhere we look - from video games on our screens, to logos of the cars we see in front of us, all the way to the toothpaste we squeeze out of that little tube every morning. We are beset on all sides with possible ideas for fonts. |
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Who is cooler? Superman or Batman? |
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Spider-Man (sorry, Marvel fan here) |
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Is font creation your full time job? If yes, what is a typical day like? |
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My full time job is as a commercial transaction attorney for a large IT services company. As such, you don't want to know what a typical day for me is like. |
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What knowledge or background does one need to have in order to go about creating fonts? |
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It helps if you know the alphabet. Seriously though, knowledge of the full character map is good, as well as having a general competency with computers and working with programs. |
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What do you want people to take away from them about font design? |
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That for only having a finite set of characters, the alphabet is a versatile thing. Typography is the practice of turning mere letters into art. My fonts are not "text" fonts - not a one of them will ever be used the way Times New Roman is - and that's not what I'm aiming for. My fonts are for graphic designers for headings, titles, etc. - they're meant for artistic pursuits, not for documents. |
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Where have your fonts been used? |
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I'm happy to say lots and lots of places. From web graphics to comic books to packaging for consumer products, I've seen my fonts pop up all over the place - even a line of Dragon Ball Z tee-shirts. For a better idea of where my fonts have been used, you can visit my "Sightings" page at http://www.iconian.com/sight.html |
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What are your hobbies, if any? |
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Other than designing fonts? (hehe) - Reading science fiction novels and playing with my daughter. |
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What are some of your favorite web sites; be it for inspiration,tutorials, design or just plain old pure entertainment? |
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For inspiration, Cybapee's Typesouce By Petra site (http://moorstation.org/typoasis/tbp/index.htm) - what a great resource for all that's new in the freeware font world. I also like FlamingText.com for click and point logos at your fingertips. And I've found myself using the Gif cruncher at www.spinwave.com religiously to reduce the file sizes of my online graphics. |
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Who/What are your influences on font design? |
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My influences on font design? None that I know of, but I'd like to think I've been helpful to the graphic artist community in providing a varying array of design fonts. |
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And in closing, if there were something you could say to the next generation of font creators, what would it be? |
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"Dare to strike out and reach new ground" - Sorry, I've just always wanted to use that "Dead Poets Society" quote. |
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| I would like to thank Dan for taking some time out of his busy schedule and have this interview with me. I would also like to congrats him and his "font widow wife" on their newborn baby girl.
To download his wonderful fonts, go here: http://www.iconian.com To contact him, click here: iconian@aol.com And being a commercial transaction attorney, this quote is for you and the many Spidy fans out there (me included =) ) "With great powers comes great responsibilities". To be part of EthanCote.com: If you are creating fonts (either for a living or for fun) and would like to be a part of "Font Creators: Interview with the masters.", please send email to font_creators@ethancote.com. In the email include URL(s) to samples of your work and I will get in touch with you. Or if you would like to honour a font designer(s) whose font(s) you have used or love, send me their contact information along with your name and I will get in touch with them. | ||
