fonts Archives | Stencil

6 Rare Hand-Drawn Fonts To Use In Your Next Design

Adam Rotman — Wed, 30 Oct 2019 16:19:52 +0000

Here’s the truth about most designs:

Many of them use the same fonts and can get sorta boring. If you want to create a truly memorable graphic, it starts with using a beautiful font. Doing just this will take your image from good to great. It might seem subtle, but using just the right font will create a unique feel that will make your image stand out from the rest.

Even better, if you can use rare, more obscure fonts, it will give your image a totally custom feel. Here’s a list of some of the best and lesser-known premium fonts you can use in your designs today:

Buckle up Buttercup Marker Font

This amazing font from Maryam Kamal Co is one of the best hand-drawn fonts around. It’s also available in SVG, which is a nice bonus. It’s designed to look as close as possible to natural handwriting by keeping the subtle imperfections on the edges. It’s perfect for many uses such as magazine headlines, high fashion, bold signature branding, classy packaging, eye-catching callouts and stand-out advertising.

Get the font →

The Succulent (Font Trio)

This great font from Andrea De Oliveira is earthy and stylish, but can be used in a variety of situations: wedding invites, social media, scrapbooks, overlays for photos and more. One nice thing is this is actually a set of 3 separate fonts for the price of one. All three work really well together and can be paired for nearly endless possibilities.

Get the font →

Hackney

Hackney is a beautiful font (also available in SVG) from Ellen Luff that really packs a punch. It is an all caps font, with two alternatives for every letter, to maintain the custom made look, without obvious doubles. It includes ALL European language support as well. It’s designed to be an incredibly accessible hand-painted font. It includes three versions of the font to suit nearly any situation.

Get the font →

Sunkissed

Another absolute stunner from Maryam Kamal Co, Sunkissed is an instant classic. It’s also pretty rare to see such a beautiful and unique all-caps font, with a watercolor feel.

This trendy font collection includes an SVG and a regular font file. This font is actually 2 fonts in 1, and they can be matched for all sorts of uses. The realistic watercolor and texture of the fonts add extra originality and character other regular fonts can’t offer. The stylish textured script was designed to complement the watercolor sans font, but it also looks amazing on its own. Don’t sleep on this one!

Get the font →

Avallon

This font from Sam Parrett is great because it includes a newer “OpenType-SVG or Colour fonts” format in addition to the regular TTF format. If you’re going to be using it in Stencil, be sure to upload the TTF only. If you’re using the font outside of Stencil, using the new OpenType-SVG format allows for more detail to the letters than previously possible. This font has an amazing paintbrush effect built-in, as a transparent texture, which just gives it a completely unique look.

Get the font →

Freeday Script & Sans

Freeday Font from Aktab Studio is a modern font suitable for greeting cards, social media posts, blog images or even logo design. It comes with a complete set of standard characters, Alternates, Ligature Variation, Punctuation & has an extra textured version if you’re looking for that more distressed look. Its curves are extremely pleasing to the eye and will keep your audience wanting to see more!

Get the font →

There’s such a wide selection of fonts available now, that we wanted to keep this list short, curated and concise. Be sure to check these out and think about how you’ll be using them to wow your audience!

The post 6 Rare Hand-Drawn Fonts To Use In Your Next Design appeared first on Stencil.

Enhance Blog Images for Social Media Posts (A Quick Guide)

Lillian De Jesus — Thu, 16 Nov 2017 05:52:55 +0000

Ever encounter a link on social media with an incredible headline, not clickbait, but something that genuinely intrigues you but the image is not that great or… there is no image at all (GASP!). I know those links kill me. What are they thinking?! Are you doing that… sharing your blog posts without an image? I hope not. Creating content for a blog can be time-consuming, however, the purpose of the blog post is to have someone read it. The reality of a person seeing a link without an image on social media and clicking it is slim to none, even with a killer headline. That’s why we’re bringing you this quick guide on how to enhance blog images for social media posts so you can take every advantage to promote your blog content. Let’s get started!

Enhance Blog Images for Social Media Posts

1. Branding the Blog Image

First, let’s get started with your featured image. Every blog post must have a featured image. Some people will have the headline or title of their blog post on the image or some people will have an image conveying what the post is about. Think about your branding colors and images of your blog. Stick to 2-3 colors, 2 fonts, and particular images you’d use (icons or photos or color background).

When you brand your featured images it becomes much easier to create in the future. The process becomes faster, so for people who say this takes up too much time, well this first part may take a bit of time to gather some essential information but after this, it becomes easy breezy. Do not skip the branding part. Believe me, you won’t regret taking these steps! If you have not officially done your blog brand with a graphic designer you can quickly capture the basics of this action plan below.

ACTION PLAN:

Capture your Brand Colors

What colors do you tend to lean towards when creating images and what emotion do you feel? Yes, I said emotion. If you haven’t read about color psychology before be sure to check out this post for details. Find 2-3 colors that you feel comfortable using all the time and you know you can stick to for your blog images. Here are some websites that can help you choose color palettes:

These are great sites because they usually have palettes already selected so you can see the colors together plus the HEX codes are available. Most of the sites allow you to download the color palettes you choose so you can have it for your own record.

Action: Type your HEX code into Stencil and your color-ready!

Fonts

Typography can be a scary endeavor for some because it really can make or break an image so picking out the “just right” font can take time. But please don’t overthink it! Here’s a basic rule for non-designers – the simpler the better. Pair your fonts as if they truly fit together. Imagine them on a magazine cover. Would you style a headline with small letters and your subheadline with large letters? No. Don’t make it fancy either. Do you see any cursive script on headlines? No. You will see script font for subheadlines in many cases though if it’s to provide emphasis to the headline.

Stencil already provides a variety of fonts and direct access to Google web fonts. If those don’t suit you, then upload your own font! Again, don’t try to be fancy just pick 2 good quality fonts.

For example, if you were to choose from the Stencil list, a quick no-hassle way is to choose a favorite font and make it bold as a headline. Then use the same font again without making it bold for the subheadline. In the case below, we’ve used the font named Poppin.

Super easy! Now to add a little more pizzazz, use a script or non-traditional font for your subheadline for emphasis. You can use Poppin as your headline font and Rock Salt for the subheadline (see the image below).

See the difference? Both images look great and depending on the audience, you can probably figure out which subheadline followers would like best. You may want to do a test and see which image gets more views.

Action: Pick out 2 fonts to work within Stencil.

Image Background

What kind of image background would you like to use and stick with each time you feature your blog post? Think of it as your stylesheet or instructions for your featured image. Some people love to have icons as their featured image and never use photos at all. Some people need to have photos but have to have specific filters set like Clarity or Hefe. Some people like the simplicity of a color background. This is where you can really create your featured image your own and it’s exciting! (Sorry, I really geek out on this stuff. )

Here are a few examples of a blog post topic about book marketing:

Adding icons from the Stencil library is easy – there are more than 59,000 new icons!

You can add a filter, add a color overlay, or use transparency.

Remember to use your logo or website URL to watermark the image and leave it in the corner or off to the edge so everyone can see the lovely image. There are so many variations you can try to complete your image. Keep note of your style or save it as a template in Stencil to reuse over and over for each featured image.

Action: Choose your image style!

2. Provide Different Types of Blog Images

Providing various size blog images gives the reader a choice to choose what image to share. Hopefully, you’re using a social media sharing plug-in on the blog that keeps visual marketing in mind. Here are a couple of WordPress options:

Social Warfare

Yoast SEO

What many people forget to do is to have a long vertical pinnable image ready for pinning for Pinterest users. Please if you’re blogging, you should be using Pinterest and letting people pin your blog posts. It’s fantastic for bloggers! Some people don’t like to have such large images on their blog posts but there’s a trick to hide images on blog posts. Although it may be hiding on the blog post, when you click on the share button for Pinterest a pop-up window will display all the images related to the blog post even the hidden ones. You can then choose whichever images you’d like to pin.

If you look at this blog post, you won’t see this image anywhere.

Sneaky, huh!

This code is the Google-friendly one where it’s letting Google know you’re not really hiding an image but you have one specifically designated for Pinterest.

First, pick an image you’d rather not have pinned from the blog post to Pinterest. You’ll use this image to use the code to hide the long vertical pin image. (Using fake image source and URL in the example below but these are the areas where you would enter your own information.)

Areas to complete:

alt=”____________”

data-pin-url=”___________”

data-pin-description=”_______________”

data-pin-media=”_______________”/>

Copy and paste the above code to notes or somewhere on your computer. Delete the areas within the quotes and replace with your image source, alt text, data pin URL, data pin description, and data pin media file. Then copy and paste where you’d place the image onto your blog post in the Text area and save.

The main image that you don’t really want to be pinned will remain on the blog post. When readers click on the Pinterest button to pin they won’t see the main image and will have the long vertical pin image as an option to pin. This is the best way to hide a pinnable image that is Google-friendly.

Every blog is different and may have a different format for featured images, however, the Blog Post Feature size in Stencil is 1,200 x 600 and that usually works out best for most blogs. If you have most readers on Facebook, try using Facebook size images so they can easily share those. If most of your readers are on Twitter, the Blog Post Feature size works out perfectly as the shared image. Again, using the plug-ins that specialize in social sharing will help maneuver correct images for the specific social media platform.

3. Naming Your Blog Images

It almost makes me want to cry when I see an awesome blog post and I’m ready to pin an image and the image name pops up with IMG2988830… GRRR! Please take the two seconds to name your images. It’s best to name it before you upload it into your Media file in your blog and once it is in your Media file, take the additional step to name the ALT text. If it’s a featured image then use the title of your blog post. If it’s not a featured image, describe the image as if someone is searching for it online. For example, if the photo had a cat with kittens, name the photo exactly that “a cat with kittens”, unless there is a particular reason to be more specific.

This is especially important for Pinterest, the ALT text that you name or describe is then listed as the description for the pinned image. With that in mind, when naming images have SEO as a top priority and include the blog title.

Are you ready to enhance your blog post images?

There’s a lot of information here so let’s recap! Branding your blog images is going to be the best thing you do once you get those action steps completed which are: picking out your colors, choosing fonts, and your image styles. Consistency is key. Keep using the colors, the fonts, and image background of your choice and you’ll find it will be super easy to create a featured image for each blog post plus people will recognize your social media posts. They’ll say, “Hey! I keep seeing posts from this lady who uses purple overlay and occasionally yellow. That’s pretty nice. It keeps getting my attention.” or “Hey! There’s that dude who keeps using a red background with icons all the time.” People tend to notice consistency, branding, and authority.

Give people image options, please! People like to pin stuff a lot but they won’t pin tiny images or horizontal images. Pinners want long vertical images to pin. Please take the time to make a pinnable image for each blog post even if you are not on Pinterest. You’ll be surprised by the traffic you can get from Pinterest.

Pretty please with a cherry on top, name your images something that describes the image. Image SEO is real.

I hope these tips will be helpful to you and will enhance your blogging experience.

Which of these tips will you take on as a blogger? Are you already doing these enhancements? Let us know in the comments.

The post Enhance Blog Images for Social Media Posts (A Quick Guide) appeared first on Stencil.

How to Use the New Upload Font Feature (Plus Google Web Fonts)

Lillian De Jesus — Thu, 12 Jan 2017 16:10:57 +0000

Creating designs with amazing fonts can produce extraordinary images! We value your creativity and want to make designing social media images in a snap, however beautiful as well. We’re happy to announce that you can now upload your own fonts plus an awesome feature to access Google Web Fonts. Fonts can make or break a design. Now it’s time to show you how to use the new upload font feature. Let’s get to it!

How to Use the New Upload Font Feature (Plus Google Web Fonts)

First, I have to tell you I’m a bit of a font geek, therefore Stencil’s new upload font feature is the ULTIMATE feature of all time. I’m a fanatic of fonts. Ready to get fontabulous?! (Yes, it’s not a word, but when you’re this excited new words develop.)

We now declare you fontabulous, where you can use fabulous fonts for your images.

Stencil allows up to 50 custom fonts (includes uploaded fonts along with Google fonts). This is awesome news! The sky’s the limit when creating designs. You can now customize your images to match your business brand.

Upload your own fonts

Here are a couple of areas you can access to upload your own fonts.

Click on My Fonts to upload fonts.

or you can access by going to the right of the canvas under My Account.

Go to the right of your screen and click My Account to upload fonts.

Accessing Google Web Fonts

Using Google Web Fonts has become incredibly easy to use with Stencil, you’ll have direct access to all the open source fonts that can be used however way you’d like. Here’s where you can access the Google Web Fonts while you’re creating your designs in Stencil.

You can search for a Google font or choose from the list.

The awesome news about the integration of Google Web Fonts is that we have full international support. We now have font support for Latin (Extended), Arabic, Bengali, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Thai, Vietnamese…just to name a few!

Where can you get more fonts to upload?

There are many creative sites that have bundles of fonts that you can download to your computer. Be warned! It may lead to an obsession… it’s all in the sake of creativity and design, right?

You can find fonts from free to crazy expensive. Whichever fonts you choose to download always check for licensing to make sure you are able to use it freely for your designs.

Here are some sites that you can peruse and potentially find your favorite font:

The most dangerous areas on these sites for the font-obsessed are called bundles. I’ve warned you!

What types of fonts should you choose?

The handwriting script fonts are popular and can be used to accentuate a word or small phrase in your image.

Used Sverige Script and Impact fonts in this image.

Use script fonts sparingly to create a look you’d like the achieve. Being clear in your message is always a must. People will scroll past an image if they can’t make out the words.

No matter what font you choose to use, make sure it’s legible.

The wonderful thing about uploading your own fonts is that there is such a variety that you can try.

Important Notes About Fonts

Be careful when deleting fonts from the My Fonts tab. If images were created using those fonts, and the fonts have been deleted, the text in those images will default back to Fredoka One. Delete wisely!

The upload fonts feature is exclusively for Pro / Unlimited users only. Sign up to become a Pro or Unlimited user here.

Ready to get Fontabulous?

Choosing from 50 custom fonts to create your designs is a shining light to your creativeness. It’s a liberating experience! We encourage you to upload your fonts and create stunning images for social media, your blog, and more.

Now that you know the ultimate Stencil feature of all time, I need to know, what’s your favorite font?

Here are a few of mine: Sverige Script, TradeMark, Bickley Script Com, and Gabriela-Regular.

Oh, by the way, did you know you can get a free font inspired by Donald Trump called, the Tiny Hand. Check it out here. That’s all I have to say about that. hehe

Let us know what you think of this feature.

Share your images with custom fonts on social media with the hashtag #fontabulous.

Can’t wait to see your designs!

The post How to Use the New Upload Font Feature (Plus Google Web Fonts) appeared first on Stencil.