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4 New Fonts Today
July 1, 2010

Just released today: Sheridan Script, Zenith, Blacksmith and Calileo.









Sheridan Script Preview
June 24, 2010

Here's a sneak preview of Dave Parr's upcoming Sheridan Script font. Set will include two different styles: Regular (as shown) and Bold. Should be complete in a couple of weeks. Watch for it on the home page.

LHF Sheridan Script






Blacksmith Preview
June 7, 2010

Sneak preview of Dave Correll's upcoming "Blacksmith" font to be released on July 1st (date pushed back from June 15th). Fans of Dave's Signmaker font are sure to love this one too.

LHF Blacksmith




Engraver's Ornaments 1 Released
June 7, 2010

Tom Kennedy offers up his latest collection of old fashioned ornaments and rules for your approval. LHF Engraver's Ornaments features 52 high quality ornaments on the A-Z and a-z keys. PLUS... 10 bonus ornaments on the number keys. Each of these ornaments are original, never-before-seen creations direct from the mind of Tom Kennedy. See more samples here.








LHF Chateau Released
June 1, 2010

New font from Dave Smith. Fans of Dave's English Rose font are sure to appreciate this victorian-inspired style. Includes 7 bonus alternates. See samples and download here.

LHF Chateau




LHF Quadrex Tutorial
May 7, 2010

A simple tutorial demonstrating how to use the LHF Quadrex fonts to create 3D prismatic effects.




Free Quadrex Update
May 7, 2010

LHF Quadrex
Dave Parr and I have been working on overhauling the LHF Quadrex fonts for some time now. Thanks to Dave's meticulous work, the pieces align better than ever. This latest version is 2.0. Here's a run down of what was done:

• All prismatic pieces redrawn
• All prismatic pieces positioned to butt up against eachother perfectly (slight gap at the edge of the letters remains for minor shifting or stretching of vinyl)
• All new (tighter) kerning and spacing
• Restyled "X"
• All letters on same baseline now. Removed "bounce" feature
• Added alternate A, E and Y
• New ampersand courtesy of Dave Parr
• Removed Highlight font (wasn't working well when overlapping two prismatic pieces)

This is a free download for customers who purchased LHF Quadrex (version 1.0) before 5/7/2010. Note that the Highlight font has been removed from this new set. So if you've found that useful, then you shouldn't upgrade.

--Chuck

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Important notes for FlexiSign & Omega users

FlexiSign users:
By default FlexiSign changes the height of all fonts, using the uppercase X as it's guide. Since the LEFT, RIGHT and BOTTOM fonts of the LHF Quadrex set do not contain a full uppercase X within the prismatic pieces, the individual fonts will not align properly with eachother.

To alleviate this problem, go to Edit > Preferences and click the Tools tab. Scroll down on the left side and click on Text Tool. On the right side check "Use Font Height". This will force FlexiSign to use the actual height of the fonts and not resize them. The prismatic fonts will align with the BASE font properly now. This also applies to all multi-part fonts such as: Convecta, Quadrex, Antique Shop, etc.

Omega users:
By default Omega's Font Converter uses the uppercase H of each font to determine the height. Since the multi-part fonts such as LHF Quadrex fonts do not contain a full uppercase H within the prismatic pieces, the individual fonts will not align properly after they are converted. You must choose to use the "asterisk" ( * ) character instead of the H.

There is a box on the asterisk character slot of each of the LHF Quadrex fonts. This box is the same size in each of the fonts, so forcing Omega to use the asterisk character instead of the uppercase H will ensure that each of the fonts are converted at the same height. You must do this for all of the LHF Quadrex fonts.



Chateau Sneak Preview
May 6, 2010

Sample of Dave Smith's soon to be released "Chateau" font:
LHF Chateau




Free Bulldog Update
May 6, 2010

LHF Bulldog

We fixed some issues with LHF Bulldog. Apparently some empty glyphs had extremely wide sidebearing settings. Because the glyphs slots were empty, this didn't seem to cause a problem with any programs except CorelDraw X3. Therefore this issue went undetected for quite a while. But it can cause some erratic behavior in Corel, so best to download the latest version (2.0) from your account.

We also fixed some paths and points and made the space character smaller. Plus a few kerning improvements for good measure.

Remember Windows users: Double clicking on the new version will display the old version number (1.0) until you uninstall it from the font folder. This is because if two fonts have the same name, Windows displays the preview of the one installed, rather than the actual font file you double-clicked on.



Smooth fades tutorial
April 15, 2010

This is something of a follow up to the "fades & line effects" tutorial. Only difference here is that we're doing a multi-color fade. Super easy. Fonts used are John Studden's upcoming "Roebuck" and my "Catalina" script, which is still several months away.

--Chuck






Country Road Released
April 13, 2010

John Studden's new LHF Country Road font is now ready for your approval.
Click here for delicious samples.

LHF Country Road




Line effect for Country Road
April 13, 2010

As I was creating a design for John Studden's new Country Road font, I decided to add some lines in the letters. This effect was used on the letters and the background to create an old fashioned lithograph look. It's extremely simple to accomplish, but some people have asked about it, so here is how to do it. Download the horizontal lines in .psd format here.

--Chuck




Big Dog Tutorial Series
April 11, 2010

I get requests sometimes for tutorials on how to create bevel effects in Photoshop. I finally got around to it this weekend. I've always been a little hesitant to instruct someone like this. Partly because I know my methods are a bit awkward (I do everything on separate layers). But if you're interested, here is a 6 part series on creating bevel effects in Photoshop using my LHF Big Dog font. And a layered .psd file to go along with it. This is of course is not the only method I use. Sometimes I'll simply use Photoshop's Bevel & Emboss layer effects. But this one is approached differently because of the options Big Dog affords the user. And the results are crisper because the convex overlay is a font.

This series assumes the viewer has a basic knowledge of Photoshop, so these move pretty fast. In the interest of time, I don't explain how to do everything in detail.  There are plenty of other tutorials that focus on the technical aspects of the program and how to get around in it (visit Lynda.com). But I prefer to focus more on how an artist might use the program to actually make something. Though if you do have some questions, I'll try to answer them if you email me.

You might also want to subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep updated on new tutorials we might make.

--Chuck















Big Dog Update
March 31, 2010

Dave Parr and Chuck Davis have overhauled LHF Big Dog. The updated version is now 2.0. It is recommended that you uninstall your existing version and install this new set instead. Improvements include:

• New style "R" (old style is offered as alternate)
• All convex pieces fit tighter and exact
• All new spacing and kerning
• New style "K"
• Better styling of convex pieces
• Improvements to the width of some letters ("W" not so wide now)
• Spikes centered better
• Names changed to "1" (Regular) and "2" (Spike) to shorten the names

This is a free update for customers who purchased this font set prior to March 31, 2010. Simply download again from your account. If you need your downloads reset, we'll be happy to do that. Just shoot us an email. Please always include your order number (found on your receipt) for Big Dog.


LHF Big Dog





Old Stock Update
March 26, 2010

LHF Old Stock has been updated to version 1.5. Somewhere along the line, with all the previous revisions and updating to Postscript OpenType, the center of the "Q" became shifted off-center. Strange that it escaped my attention for so long. This latest update fixes this embarrassing mistake along with a few kerning improvements.

This is a free update for customers who purchased this font set. Simply download again from your account. If you need your downloads reset, we'll be happy to do that. Just shoot us an email. Please be sure to include your order number (found on your receipt) for Old Stock.

--Chuck

LHF Old Stock




John's New Font
March 25, 2010

Coming April 13th from John Studden.

LHF Country Road




Movie Mistakes
March 12, 2010

I have a habit of pausing and rewinding TV shows and movies when I spot signs or other lettering. For this reason, people know better than to watch any program or movie with me. I was watching the movie "Of Mice and Men" (the 1992 version with Gary Sinise and John Malkovich) last week and spotted this out of place looking sign:


The word "Employment" on the employment agency sign looks suspiciously like Friz Quadrata Bold, which wasn't created until 1965. Three things give it away as being Friz Quadrata: First, the bottom horizontal stroke of the "E" sticks out further than the other two. Second, the way the "P" tapers at the end and does not connect with the straight stem. And third, the way the peak in the middle of the "M" tapers on the left side. Friz Quadrata is a very distinct and recognizable font (and better used in it's original regular weight, rather than bold like this). Being that "Of Mice and Men" takes place in the 1930's, Friz Quadrata would not have been a part of any sign painter's repertoire.

If you like that, check this out...


This is a screen capture of a scene from the movie "The Good Shepherd" where Matt Damon steals the briefcase from the Nazi professor. That isn't Helvetica used for the title. That's Arial! (The "G" is a dead give away) Notice the document is dated 1939. Arial wasn't created until 1982. The smaller text is Times Roman, which would have been available to use for mass production like newspapers. But if the professor had created this list for himself or even a few people, he would have used a typewriter. So just how exactly did the professor create this clean laser-copied document with a nice big red title set in Arial?

And if that wasn't enough, there is another obvious mistake with the document. The German translation of the word "The" should actually read "Der".

Now you know why people won't watch movies with me.

--Chuck



CorelDraw X3 Bug
March 8, 2010

Don't know why this issue has just cropped up recently (perhaps caused by a recent security update to Windows?). But we've seen two cases of this in the past week on 64 bit systems running Windows 7.

CorelDraw X3 contained a bug which prevented Postscript OpenType fonts from working properly (at all really). The flyout menu would just show a blank box where the sample text should be.

The solution is simply to download and install the latest patches from Corel's website. Once properly patched up, the version should read: 13.0.0.739 and the fonts will work fine.





Confection Essentials
March 2, 2010

We are proud to present Tom Kennedy's new LHF Confection Essentials 1. This unique font consists of 67 meticulously drawn panels, scrolls and borders intended for the professional artist. You'll find them to be a perfect complement to Tom's other fonts like Confection and Colonial Roman.




LHF Classic Panels 1
February 23, 2010

John Studden releases this handy collection of panels and ribbons intended for professional use by graphic designers and sign artists. 26 panels + 10 bonus elements.
See the key guide for all panels here.




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