Stefan Fitze (Website) / Zamboni

HOW TO MAKE TYPEFACES

( WITH A ZAMBONI )

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TO START THE TUTORIAL

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HOW TO MAKE TYPEFACES WITH A ZAMBONI

1 GET FAMILIAR

1.1

WHAT IS A ZAMBONI?

To start off you should get familiar whith what a Zamboni is.

There are three videos to tell you all about Zambonis based on how much you already know.

For Beginners

For Intermediate

For Pros

1.2

FALL IN LOVE WITH ZAMBONIS

Doesn’t matter if you are a Trump-supporter, a Simpsons-fan or in love with Lil Yachty’s bubblegum trap there is some Zamboni for everyone.

2 CONSTRUCTION RULES

2.1

VARIABLE SIZES: THE ZAMBONI

Before you start thinking about the design, you have to make sure you are familiar with the restrictions and rules that are given from the tool. Our developed system is variable and can be addapted to any Zamboni type and ice rink size. The best way is to start with the Zamboni itself. Get to know about the technical datas that are given by your Zamboni model. Most important is to know the width of the “Pen” in the back of the machine as well as the minimum possible track radius.

2.2

VARIABLE SIZES: THE ICE RINK

Next you have to figure out the dimensions and proportions of your chosen ice rink. It is important that you know how many stroke widths your Zamboni model is able to draw on it. This way you will better understand how to scale your characters, words or sentences in the right way and how many of them are possible to apply

2.3

VARIABLE SIZES: PROPORTIONS

Now since you are familiar with your type of Zamboni and its possibilities as well as with the available space you have at your disposal you will get to know more about our developed system. Here you can see how the proportion of the typeface are built up. We do them messure in stroke widths, so you can translate this system to any kind of Zamboni size. We have 4 stroke widths for the x-height and 2 for each, the ascender and descender height.

2.4

VARIABLE SIZES: THE SYSTEM

Since our system is developed for drawing with Zambonis, it was important for us to keep the idea of having the most covered space possible. This explains, why we work with the minimum possible radius.
Imaging sitting on the Zamboni with the idea of writing a word with it, it is really hard to be aware of the dimensions and messurements. As well we wanted to have it scalable, why we decided to guide the Zamboni driver with a notation and rhythm system. On the introduction below you can find heavy dashed lines, which show you the beat. Within every beat you can find four countings. Now you can scale your typeface into the right dimension by setting the best suitable speed for your beat. You will then count your beat in your head while driving and will succeed the result you wanted.
Our system is developed to keep the drawing process in a flow when you have more than one character side by side, for a word for example. This means the starting and ending point of each character is set on the same hight, which makes it possible to just lift the “pen” for one counting and on the second you can put it down again and continuing your drawing without struggeling to get to the starting point of your next character.

3 EXECUTE

3.1

GET A ZAMBONI

3.2

DO IT

If you managed to get a Zamboni it is time to get on the ice and start writing as you prepared. Don’t forget to take photos / Videos of your letters on the ice, you will need them later for the digitization.

4 FINALIZE

4.1

THE GRID

4.2

LIGATURES

4.2

GO WILD

We just showed you one possible way of making a typeface with a Zamboni but of course there are endless possibilities. We want to encourage you to go wild!