
Show HN: I built a webapp to help web "designers" create logos and fonts quickly - wolfparade
http://use.fontorie.com
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flyosity
Are you sure you didn't mean you created a tool to help web _developers_
create logos quickly? I'm a designer and I really can't see myself ever using
this tool. I have Photoshop open at all times and know all the typefaces I
have on my system, so I can bust out something incredibly simple in seconds.
Plus, for logos, there's just not much benefit of using a web font since you
typically won't use the same font from your logo elsewhere on the site, and
the selection of good web fonts is limited and their kerning sucks and/or
can't be adjusted at a precise level.

Just my 2 cents.

Edit: One more thing, designers don't create logos quickly. They're sweated
over and tweaked and modified over and over until they're perfect. It's not
something that we quickly generate or don't care about if there are small
alignment/kerning issues. I'm sure there are some good use cases here but they
don't immediately pop into my mind.

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gallerytungsten
I was going to write a similar reply to flyosity. This is a tool for non-
designers. Designers already have far more precise tools.

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wicknicks
Very nice and useful website. Couple of points:

    
    
      * The input box for the logo name is not obvious.
      * The options on the left hand side are quite techy. I don't understand how they can help.
      * Do all the four drop down boxes on the bottom work together? Or is it one font at a time only? The default view shows four active fonts. I was thinking that there was some cool algorithm which 'mixes' fonts. Is there any?

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jemka
I spent a good 15 seconds trying to find the input box to type my fictional
website name. You might want to make that more obvious.

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sciurus
Where is it? I gave up on finding it after about 30 seconds.

EDIT: Tried again, and realized the output is also the input.

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frio
Couple things:

* a suggestion: add a colour slider to allow changing the background colour of the page. It can be jarring whipping something up against a light blue background that's intended for a site with a different colour scheme.

* minor bug - when choosing a font from a different dropdown box (ie. picking one under "curvey", when the current selection is from "standary"), if the font is already the "chosen" one (ie. if the box was displaying "sniglet", and I click it again), the logo font doesn't refresh. It's not hard to work around (pick something else from the list, and then pick that one again), but it shouldn't be hard to fix either.

Other than that, I like it. Well done :).

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rokhayakebe
Great, I need something to help me design a logo easily. You could even guilt-
charge me $1 once I click SAVE.

However it isn't going to work as is. You need to show all fonts immediately.
As a user, and potential paid user, I do not want to click endlessly.

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itships
Agreed, being able to see multiple variations of the logo simultaneously would
be nice.

I could see myself paying somewhere between $1-$5 for a zero-effort
placeholder logo like this.

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pseudonym
I'm seeing the logo half-cropped off the top of the screen, save to examples
and the link is overlapping the Logo, and I can't find the text input anywhere
on the screen to put my text into. Chrome and Firefox on Mac OS X 10.6.7.

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wolfparade
The fonts are from Google Web Fonts API. Check out the examples for some
awesome stuff that can be done with the site. Also add an example if you are
visual talented. Finally, I'd like a lot of feedback on what needs to be done
to make the webapp great.

~~~
alexfringes
Initially, I was under the impression that this tool generates an image. Then
I realized that it uses Google's Fonts–which makes it infinitely more useful
for super fast logo prototypes. I would Make this more obvious. Don't hide the
final "copy-and-pastable" CSS behind a link; it's the best feature.

It could also find more varied use if you allowed the user to input more text
at smaller sizes in order to generate Google Font based CSS for other elements
of a layout (or to preview how a logo would look at a more realistic size).

I would suggest a slight redesign of the controls on the left so that it is
clear which elements affect the font and which are purely for the shadow.
Similarly, the "submission" of a shadow to the list of shadows needs a more
obvious description (both verbally and visually) of how this process
functions.

Overall, I think this is an excellent way of getting a (placeholder) logo up
and running in 20 seconds and I'd love to see how you expand on its current
state.

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Zimahl
As a developer with a slight interest in design, this is great. Definitely
bookmarked for future use. I can think of just one suggestion outside of what
others have suggested:

I'd love it if I could get it as an image instead of CSS. Since I would only
use it for a display and probably not any dynamic text, just a transparent png
export of the image would be sweet. Even a non-transparent image export would
be useful (and necessary with any amount of blur on the drop shadow).

On my own I can print screen and pull in the text into an image, resize it,
and make it transparent but others might not have the resources or know how to
do that.

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paulsocal
This is cool, i'd use it. Its quick to get an idea of what font to use. A few
improvements (using chrome): 1) Didnt know I can change the text that says
'Logo.' Took me a while to click the text and change it. Indicate that
somewhere. 2) It would be cool if I was able to change the background as well.
3) In the drop downs, it would be awesome to see images of sample text of that
font. 4) Letter spacing would also be awesome.

That's about it for now. Keep up the good work! Looks cool!

~~~
wolfparade
Thanks for the great feedback.

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ruethewhirled
Would be nice if you could include some information about whether the usage of
the fonts is free eg licensing/legal type information

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danejensen
fonts are totally free google puts them

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thomasswift
I think this is very cool.

One piece of feedback from how I would use this type of tool: Once I set my
logotext, which I found not to be a problem, I would love to just jam on the
down arrow on my keyboard to cycle through all. It sort of worked because it
would open the last select used. but then it be pretty cool for my uses at
least.

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oacgnol
I've bookmarked this for myself later on- I'm a developer with no design chops
whatsoever. There's a big space for apps that make it easier for developers to
push out aesthetically pleasing front ends.

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JCB_K
Looks awful on this (admittedly small) screen:
<http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2819425/fontorie.png>

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Aaronontheweb
Speaking as a developer who royally sucks at design... THANK YOU. This looks
like it could be a big help for me :)

~~~
brandnewlow
SQL

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bad_user
Hey, I'm getting an error:

    
    
        http://use.fontorie.com/5d90df57ffffffkkf000efn

~~~
wolfparade
It's not prefect yet.

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ralphsaunders
_Show HN: I built a webapp to help web "designers" create logos and fonts
quickly_

FTFY

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bprater
I didn't see a font size option? Did I miss it?

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liamk
The layout looks broken on an iPad2.

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alexismadrigal
This is awesome. Thank you.

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gautaml
I can't ever see a real designer using this.

A developer with no artistic skills? Perhaps.

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noduerme
Nice until Google cuts it off and starts charging for it -- like they did with
translation =\

