A Valentine Font

Here’s a Valentine’s Day font, still not a font in the software sense of the word, just in time for the holiday. (Hope it’s not too late.)

I happened across this design when I was doodling one day, imagining a better logo for WordPress than their current W. So I made this W out of two colored overlapping hearts, with two colors that often make black when overlapping in a blend mode called Multiply, which is like if you had two colored cellulose sheets overlap. I briefly considered, since my last name is Wolff, to make that my logo. Yes, I’m trying to get a little more touchy-feely, but not that much! Besides, I like the logo I have.

Once I drew the alphabet in one color scheme in Illustrator, I tried some other colors that would produce interesting overlaps.

To get the two colors, you’d have to make more than one version of the font, like some designs you’ve seen that have an outline and fill, or solid and shadow, and are sold in a package, like you’d get bold or italic versions.

There would be two strategies:

• If we assumed the font would be used with software that could Multiply one font frame over the other, there would be two variations, one for each color, which could overlap.
• If we allowed for wider use, such as ink blending (inks don’t behave like colored cellulose sheets), there would be three variations, one for each color, and one for the overlap. So three inks (or CMYK formulas) would give the illusion of an overlap.

I don’t own font-making software (if I did, it would be this), so I leave it open to the world at large to make one, and leave you on your honor to either keep the result open-source, in a Creative Commons non-alteration license, or let me be in on whatever deal you make with a foundry.

Or just use the outlines, moving and duplicating them to make words, like I did.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Update, February 2023

I eventually bought the font-creation software Glyphs. I can send you a copy of what I came up with.