Question about Alphabets: Is it regular that the little T is so small in american fonts? I love the Heatherfont from GG-designs but I have always to play with the sizes. In Germany the hight of the letters is splited in 3: The roof, the groundfloor and the cellar. So a small B has the same height like a T or a H or a capital. For us here it looks weird when the T and the H are so different. I enlarged the T with 15% and reduced the H with20% to have it nearly on the same line.

In teaching handwriting, calligraphy, over the years, the different handwriting methods certainly did change. The big names were Palmer, Zaner-Blosser and D'Nelian- and I'm not sure If I spelled those correctly. Every font is just a little different, but the trend was to diminish the lower case t over the years so it was not as tall as full size letters, like the h and b. Some letters have serifs and some do not. (Like on the word Dorothea above) Those are the little joining marks, that you see on italics, which is a whole style all its own. So any font that says sans-serif is without serifs - like Comic Sans has none and is very simple, While fancier fonts do have serifs and appear to lead from one letter into the next. Then you have your script fonts that appear to replicate some sort of handwriting - either fancy with a pen, or even simple like a child's. It all gets very confusing! It's nice when the sewing machine manufacture includes all three types within the software so you can pick which works better on the items we want to quickly personalize with text.

What makes you say it's an American font? There are thousands of fonts, with new ones being created all the time, and not all are creditied to their originator. The world is a smaller place, and people don't necessarily stay in their home country physically. And with the internet, you can be from anywhere.
What we are taught in handwriting is not always what is in the printed word. You just need to buy something that you are comfortable with. Lots of digitizers out there.

Look , you can type your name in custom preview, and then when you change pages, all the fonts show how it looks! Than you can search for the digitized alphabet and maybe find one that you like.
Jo

For Jan: Here are the capital-J I use the most.
Green is HEather from GG, red is comic sans from embird, pink is curlz from embird and blue is the Janome-font. I really love the one from Heather cause this looks like I do my own handwriting :o)
Greetings, Bettina

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by Janus48 24 May 2012

Thanks for the samples - I like Heather best also. I have a Viking Diamond and for the money...I wish they had loaded it with a lot of good fonts.

I really like using fonts and I also have a problem with the heights and shapes of some of the letters. My name is Jan..so it really bothers me that a lot of J's look like I. I have had to change a lot of lettering for designs. And the O's that looks like a's...another of my pet peeves. Guess I need to learn to digitize..Ha!.

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by ansalu 23 May 2012

Heather has really pretty J so I use this everytime I have a name with capital J. The handwriting font in my Janome is ugly cause it looke like a needle eye. I will post a pic for you :o)
Greetings, Bettina

Just to add.. here in the UK it is said that the easiest font to read is Comic Sans ..

For me in the UK the top one would be correct..only letters that have the tall tail would be same height as the capital.. for instance .. b,d,h,k,l, would.. the bug bear i realy have is when the lower 'o' has a middle join.. and there is no other 'a' in the name.. then the 'o' looks like an a as in script font i can see this in your font above too.. .. below my son George's name the top the original 'o' which looks like an a ..

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by ansalu 23 May 2012

Yes I have the problem with the small "O" too. My Janome has a pretty handwritingfont but if my customer has an O in the name I better use my beloved Heatherfont.
I'm still dreaming of a writingfont with an extra-set of small letter especially for the connection between the small "B" "O" , "R" , "V" and "W" so that you can hang on directly on those letters without this stupid looking bow to the bottom :o)

by ansalu 23 May 2012

the connection between the small "B" "O" , "R" , "V" and "W" so that you can hang on directly on those letters without this stupid looking bow to the bottom :o) Maybe I really should learn to digitze *lol*
Greetings, Bettina

by mooie24 23 May 2012

Hi bettina.. I digitize perhaps we should invent our own font And I will digitize for us and put in dbc....:-)

by ansalu 23 May 2012

Maria don't lead me into temptation *lol*
My first lamp for a customer was for a girl named Lotte. What did my daughter asked me? "Mama who named his kid Latte?"
That was the "o" from the font built in my Janome :o(
Greetings, Bettina

We were always taught that the t and h and b, etc. are the same height as the capital letters like your lower stitch shows and the print in the typing of this post also. I don't know who makes them smaller, not me. Hugs Bettina, hope today is a good day, Deb

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by ansalu 23 May 2012

Debra that's how I learned it too :o)
Hope my cough will get better cause I wanna go to the cinema tonight. We found a little sparrow this morning beside the car but he died an hour later. Was so sad...
Hugs my dear

This is not at every font so but I have it in some. Even with my most favorite store emblibrary where I bought the Kids Alpha. Some small letters look nearly bigger and much fatter than the capitals. The difference between the small T and H is also at the Christinafont from GG. Don't know if the artwork has this gap or is this the typical writing in the US?
Greetings, Bettina

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by clintonmiss22 23 May 2012

I would say maybe the Kids Alpha is this way on purpose because beginning writers don't make their letters uniform, but I'm with you on the rest of them - I wish they were more standard heights.

I don't think it's a country thing, it's the font itself. Ever notice how interchangable the capital I and J are?

You are right I have noticed this it looks strange. Here in Australia we are taught at school to do our small letter t. h. and l are all the same hight to match the capitol letter. Hugs Joyce.

This information may be of interest, Bettina. Had to scroll down a long way to get to the lower case letters, but f & t appear to be the same height.

I hadn't realised that they'd vary from country to country. I'll be interested to see if it's only that particular digitiser who makes the 't' so small. Do you have alpha software on your machine where you could check the variation on it?