Even the best handwriting fonts can be spotted as fakeries almost instantly. The reason lies partly with the fonts but a bigger problem comes from the way the fonts are used.
Humans don't write like a word processor or printing press. Human handwriting is a mashup of imperfections, inconsistencies and individuality. We tend to ignore such facts about human handwriting:
- It isn't perfectly left justified – and center justification is simply impossible
- Characters don't follow straight lines or parallel lines
- Text is not aligned at right angles to the paper
- Character and word spacing is inconsistent
- Character sizes vary randomly…etc.
All of these points are largely independent of the font used. So, if you want your handwriting font to look more realistic…mess things up! It takes some effort to do this in a word processor such as MS Word, but in a vector graphics editor such as Adobe Illustrator, it's pretty simple.
Don't think, however, that you now have the solution to making realistic-looking handwriting with a font. You still have to address the part of the problem originating with font: identical characters. When characters repeat such as in "too", "see", "all" and "bookkeeper", it's very easy to see the characters are identical. Once the reader recognizes the first set of identical characters, he/she will know the handwriting isn't real.
Of course, the easiest technique for getting a real handwriting look is to scan some real handwriting. This works fine…until you need to print hundreds or thousands of pieces with variable text.
If you need realistic-looking handwriting using variable text (as in variable data printing) that you print, check out our handwriting font-app. It's great for printing hand-addressed envelopes, creating personal notes and postcards, printing on sticky-notes, etc.
Read more about our realistic handwriting fonts...
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