How do you pick what books you're going to read or add to your personal library? For me, it's three things: choice of fonts; page layouts; and content. Well, last night as I read Perfectly Kept House is the Sign of A Misspent Life: How to live creatively with collections, clutter, work, kids, pets, art, etc... and stop worrying about everything being perfectly in its place (*affiliate link) by Mary Randolph Carter, I became mesmerized by a watercolor font.
I picked up this book not just for its content, but mostly for its layout (which I'll talk about in a future post). The use of watercolor as a design element, in the chapter headings, for the drop capital, for the Boxed heading, and for a rule, intrigued me. It was mixed up with thread which separated the columns of text. The more I stared at this font the more I wanted it. (I collect Typography and Page Layout inspiration boards on Pinterest.)
Of course I got sidetracked from reading and had to find this font I was in love with. After much fruitless searching, I still don't know if it's a stock font or a handwritten font created just for the project. (I'm pretty sure it's not available digitally.) But, I did find some fonts and cool tutorials that were worth sharing. So, enjoy!
Using Available Digital Fonts
If you're looking for free, ready made watercolor fonts, here are some that I found:
- Japanese Brush (unknown license) on DaFonts.com (complete alphabet, numbers, and symbols). Japanese Brush with a 50 to 75% opacity comes closet.
- Painted (unknown license) on urbanfonts (complete alphabet, numbers, and symbols)
- Blumenbuch Beta (personal use only, no commercial use) on Fontspace.com (it's only capital letters, no numbers or symbols)
- Paintbrush Italic (unknown license) on Fonts101.com (both upper and lowercase letters and numbers, no symbols)
- Brushed (unknown license) on urbanfonts (upper case letters with numbers and symbols)
Creating Your own Watercolor Lettering for One Off Text Treatments
If you want to create your own watercolor font--an ambitious undertaking--check out these step-by-step tutorials:
- from Blue FAQs how to create a watercolor text effect using Photoshop
- from PSHero how to create a watercolor text effect using a watercolor paper background
- from Tuts+ a technique on how to create organic lettering using photo manipulation--the first part of can be used for watercolor text effects
These tutorials, especially the third one, lead me to believe that the font used in Perfectly Kept House is the Sign of A Misspent Life (*affiliate link) is a custom font. But, who knows? Just because I can't find it today, doesn't mean I won't find it tomorrow!
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Credits: All layouts designed by and images taken by Eden Hensley Silverstein for The Road to the Good Life.
This post contains affiliate links followed by (*affiliate link). I feature products that I own or that I am considering purchasing. I own the book mentioned in this post. All opinions presented are my own.
