Have you ever worked with pixel fonts? They are nice & neat and can add a lot to your designs - if you know how to handle them.
And that’s the point: if you’ve used pixel fonts in your designs before, you may know that they need your attention to a larger extent than usual fonts. You need to set their position, alignment, size and line spacing correctly in order to make them look sharp.
On our sister site, the Vibr8 Bros. demonstrate exactly how you can make those cool pixel fonts work for you. Not only that, they also explain two more ‘cases’ regarding blurry pixels - issues almost every designer had to fight with at one point or another: Shapes using pixel borders (strokes), and 1-pixel lines. I’m sure you’ll find that information very useful!
In their newest article, How to avoid blurred Pixel Fonts & Shapes, you will find what you need to know about the above, with illustrated examples. And if you’re interested: at the end of the article, the Vibr8 Bros. explain exactly why paying attention to the little things is so important. Yes, pixels!
Go there now
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The pixel effect works well with other things, not solely including fonts. Creating pixel icons to your artwork can also create a retro feel, if that’s what you’re looking for.
Welcome to the blog! Yes, the post at Vibr8bros also goes into pixels in general, not only for pixel fonts. And I agree, pixel icons are perfect for a specific sort of retro style. The good old Space Invaders comes to my mind…
Hello!
This is really nice. Thank you.
However, pixel fonts are blurry in all of the CS versions of Illustrator, even if placed at full x/y values. Seems like the only Illustrator versions that shows pixel fonts the crispy way is Illustrator 10 and below.
I wrote to Adobe about it last year (2007, or even 2006), and I still didn’t get an answer (surprise!).
Does anyone know the trick for crispy looking pixel fonts in any of the CS versions? I’d like to design my Websites in CS! I’m done with 10!
Thanks,
Chris.