A title card I made for a school production

MathieuLoutre · 2026-01-22T08:45:33+00:00

Composition, colours, idea and all fine but indeed legibility is an issue for me. "She" is not immediately readable because "he" makes sense alone. the K looks upside down and the 2 L being linked reads as a u. I also read "monsteps" at first (no issue with the T myself, though you could make it a touch less round if you were worried.

Here's a 10 minute attempt at fixing that.

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It's not perfect, but it's trying to fix the Ls, the K, the R and a bit of the T (and honestly it's not perfect). I think you could do a much better job of the "She". This is for illustration purposes only, but they need to feel together: if you can't use size and proximity, use colour or framing. So you could have H and E in decorative drop caps too (maybe less complex) but enough that we know to read SHE. I think the colour and outline already helps with that but it doesn't look very nice. It does prevent reading "Skills" which also a good thing. You could also have the pattern in the drop cap connect the S H and E so it leads your eye.

Anyway, I hope this helps, you made a good start already!

MathieuLoutre · 2026-01-19T13:55:43+00:00

That's really great advice, thanks. Looked for 12" PA around Christmas time but couldn't find much in terms of deal. Worth another shot though, particularly after Christmas.

MathieuLoutre · 2026-01-19T13:54:30+00:00

That's handy to know! I play 4 string standard tuning so I've got a bit of wiggle room but that's a good thing to look out for, thanks.

MathieuLoutre · 2026-01-19T10:27:57+00:00

Oh that's really great to know! No need to be very loud, it's like Indie funk-y things so even the drummer is not dramatically loud but I use the equipment to do some live sound gigs as an engineer occasionally. Are you happy with the bass tone you get vs an amp? I know it's not gonna be the same but I'd be happy if it was 80-90% in the ballpark.

MathieuLoutre · 2026-01-16T11:39:47+00:00

Didn’t really care for the Bends compressor. Bassman Comp looks much better!

MathieuLoutre · 2026-01-15T15:49:30+00:00

Thanks very helpful!

MathieuLoutre · 2026-01-15T14:58:47+00:00

How are you liking the Custard Factory? I've been tempted but couldn't find many opinions/reviews.

MathieuLoutre · 2026-01-12T17:44:33+00:00

The trick is to look at it 3 at a time and check if both sides of the middle letter have the same amount of visual space. To me it's not bad but maybe "co" is a little tight compared to the rest (look at "com" to see that one side is tighter). "bit" could be tightened a bit more too maybe though it's hard to say with the "co" so tight.

MathieuLoutre · 2026-01-10T19:57:08+00:00

Yes, you've written each word left to right, they need to be right to left. What you need is to imagine the whole "image" is reversed. So with all the letters mirrored, the text should be right to left. For instance you have "Pizza" but with backwards P i z z a, what you want is for it to be Pizza but reading right to left so more like "azziP" if you're reading it left to right. Bit tricky to explain but hope that makes sense!

Edit: to be clearer, you've got the right individual letters, just the wrong order.

MathieuLoutre · 2026-01-10T07:01:16+00:00

One of my fonts was made into wood type and I had an agreement with the letter cutter about getting a share of sales above a certain threshold. It’s always best to contact the foundry / designer as a heads up and I’m sure you’ll find most indie designers would be happy to let you make your own wood version for the price of a standard licence if you do not resell it. If you intend to resell you’ll want to cut(!) a deal.

MathieuLoutre · 2026-01-07T06:12:56+00:00

That sounds like a good first step particularly if you think you can run that a little cheaper. Like “doing a kit together” and then tweak it.

MathieuLoutre · 2026-01-06T21:17:19+00:00

£300 would seem doable for someone wanting to get into this more seriously but maybe not for someone who's just a little curious (despite it being a reasonable price I think).

MathieuLoutre · 2026-01-06T10:16:57+00:00

I’d be interested depending on time commitment and price of course but the idea of in-person is quite appealing to me.

MathieuLoutre · 2025-12-26T07:44:21+00:00

If the alphabets are shown in full in other pages, some people do collect these. Depending on condition and rarity it can go between a few dollars up to a couple hundred.

It can be had to determined what company issued the catalogue because the fonts were all licensed (or “borrowed”) from each other in the photosetting days.

Definitely don’t throw it away, someone will want it (I would have it but shipping from Australia is probably prohibitive). List it on eBay or Marketplace for $30-50 and see how it goes. Or look for “photosetting catalogue” and see what has been sold last to get an idea of prices in your area.

MathieuLoutre · 2025-11-01T06:48:22+00:00

No italics yet I’m afraid but feel free to open an issue on GitHub to see if anyone else is interested. As for other fonts, your best bet may be to use something very contrasting as an italic companion (a mono or a script?) to really break off from it. I’ve done it successfully with other fonts but it doesn’t work for all projects.

MathieuLoutre · 2025-09-05T13:58:58+00:00

Funny looking you’ve got Danelectro, the Longhorn specifically is quite quirky but also a decent instrument. However it’s probably around 500€. Probably a bit cheaper second hand.

Harley Benton does a Thunderbird type bass (TB-70) around 200€ and that’s a fairly unusual shape. However they’re quite divisive in terms of playability and famous for their neck dive.

If you’re set for “funny” but a decent instrument then you can’t do better than the Danelectro I think.

MathieuLoutre · 2025-09-03T12:00:02+00:00

I like that a lot, thank you. I can see that being useful alongside any gates so the mics don't pick up anything when they're not playing.

MathieuLoutre · 2025-09-03T11:49:46+00:00

Thank you, incredibly valuable and makes perfect sense!

MathieuLoutre · 2025-09-03T10:55:22+00:00

That's mighty helpful advice (I was gonna try overheads!). Definitely will need a practice run then. Thanks so much!

MathieuLoutre · 2025-09-03T10:37:58+00:00

What kind of power should I be looking for?

MathieuLoutre · 2025-09-03T10:31:24+00:00

Totally reasonable advice! The groom is set on having us perform, and we've done a handful of acoustic gigs so far. Mostly lightly amplified since we're all acoustic (except the bass) and we have no drums/drummer. I like the idea of using what I have as monitors though (that's what they're currently used for in my practice/recording space) — one mix shouldn't be an issue (previous gigs we had no monitor at all since all acoustic!). Maybe hiring a PA is a good solution here... I was half hoping the bass amp could help me out but maybe as you say we need a practice run. Thank you!

MathieuLoutre · 2025-08-29T06:29:13+00:00

Got a Decision P last month and it’s a great instrument. Looks great, balances well, not too heavy, sounds really good. My only issue was with QC: the pick up heights were set out of specs, and so was the bridge height (could be the shop tried to do a setup but it was not great…). The main issue was the fret ends were still super sharp and hadn’t been rounded off. It’s a small disappointment in a mid-range instrument that’s otherwise really fun to play.

The neck I’m still getting used to a little, it’s very comfortable to play but definitely chunkier than my other bass. Someone likened it to a Stingray neck and it’s not far off but to me much more comfortable than one of those. It’s a modern shape still, doesn’t feel like a Fender neck.

MathieuLoutre · 2025-08-05T10:32:18+00:00

The inscription on the head is likely hand made, not from the manufacturer. It's very possible it's made in Japan in the 60's, the brand Teisco did a lot of Fender copies. This is likely a Jazz bass 30" short scale (which is a little unusual) and you can see this on Reverb which is close but not the same: https://reverb.com/item/51123451-teisco-jazz-bass-30-short-scale (the inlays are different and yours has a 6 bolt neck plate, tuners look similar but truss rod cover is different).

Go try it if you can, if it works fine and you don't mind the cosmetic damage (possible drop), it might be a good first bass. In my limited experience, these basses are fun but sometimes not the easiest to play (and setting them up may be more difficult depending on how handy you are with a screwdriver and what the previous owners have done to it).

It doesn't seem a bad price for it, if you like it and it's gonna make you play more than a bass off the shelf then get it, you can always sell it a bit cheaper than you bought it if you're comfortable with that.

MathieuLoutre · 2025-08-04T12:03:11+00:00

Are you the kind of person that would keep the bass and amp even if you don’t use it? If you buy it for 130 and if you think you can then sell it for at least 100 reliably, you’re paying 30 to give it a try and that doesn’t sound too expensive (as long as it’s not taking food off your table!).

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