I’ve been updating my understanding of modern HTML5 and CSS3. One of my weaknesses has always been graphic design. It was one of the things that stopped me from wanting to start a freelance web design business. Seeing I’m on a self improvement kick, I figured it was time to update some of those design skills as well.

One of the things I’ve wanted to work at for a while now, is how I utilize fonts in graphics and photography. I’ll be sharing a bunch of my work on Twitter and other social media sites. I spent the afternoon playing around with some font work. I’ve got a long way to go but I did like the way this one turned out.

I’m not going to do a full out tutorial on this, although I will be posting tutorials again soon. I did want to share this though, and just briefly explain how I created it.

Keep your head in the clouds and your feet on the ground.

This was a simple edit I did, taken from a blurry image I took at the boat races. I cropped out a section of the image because I loved the way the clouds looked. Then using Gimp I went to Filters/Map/Make Seamless. That gave me the layered cloud effect and it can also be used as a website background or graphic filler without the text now.

Here’s the image I took the clouds from. Terrible composition and blurry.

I cut out the clouds from the upper right hand corner. Added some text with an inspirational quote.

The font I used is called CAC Champagne. The text was written out in sky blue lettering. I created a second transparent layer then created an alpha selection with the lettering. I grew the alpha selection by 2 pixels, then used a black flood fill on the transparent layer. I then removed the alpha selection and used a gaussian blur on the blue lettering.

I really like the way the font effect came out. I’m planning on doing a bunch of these inspirational style quotes as a way to improve my font work. I’ll post my progress to the blog regularly. I’m not the greatest at Gimp, but I’m really happy with the progress I’ve made with the program. The important thing is that my clients seem happy with the work.

Here’s another image I posted to my Twitter earlier.

Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.

One of the most important things I’m learning is how a font can set the tone or feeling of the project you’re working on. Whether it’s photography, graphic work, or web design, the font selected helps set the tone of your content. I experiment with colors, tones and fonts till the project has the right feel to me.