June 2015 Xara Xone Giveaway - Gare’s Dimensional Drop Caps -

Gare’s Dimensional Drop Caps - June 2015 Xara Xone Giveaway

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Why not start that next page layout of yours with a bang? Gare’s Dimensional Drop Caps is a collection of over 26 unique characters, saved to a single Xara file, written as JPEGs to great quality and modest file size. Up to 300 dpi printing at character sizes greater than 2½” square, and you can use Xara’s Contone feature to your heart’s delight to recolor them. Dimensional Drop Caps make dropping stuff more fun than ever!

Get Gare's Dimensional Drop Caps and then show us how you use drop caps in your layouts.

Gare. you should have taken part in the Drop Cap challenge, they are so cool, I love them. I was going to post a couple more but after seeing those I have second thoughts. Mine seem so common and lacking in creativity in comparison.

These are just awesome. And I mean AWESOME.

So, I thought I would have a go at putting one, to use.

@ Larry—

It was an odd coincidence that I was working on this set as you had a Challenge going on for drop caps! I'm glad you approve of my part-time hobby here. It was my own design challenge to make a set that adhered to a similar style from character to character.

@ Rik—Have fun and I'm glad to see one of the characters put to good use! With your layout, technically the capital is not dropped, but it's still an ornamental cap. Drop cap I believes making the first line of a paragraph flush with the cap, but hey. At least the capital of England is correct! :)

Capital, capitol, get it?

My Best,

Gary

I do know what you mean, about the drop-cap, Gary.
And I did do that first.
Crazily, I liked the 'C' to go with the Capital of Britain.

But, to be correct in its usage, I shall do it properly!

Oh, Rik, I was just kidding a little before (hopefully) I get the good news this morning from the surgeon that I'm good to use a cane instead of the blasted walker! It means I can then take the stairs and we have a 55" TV set that needs some watching.

An initial cap is good as a rising cap or a drop cap, and you, forget the word "technically" for a moment: even expert typographers refer to an initial cap at large point size as a "drop cap", just as we call bitmap resolution "dots per inch", when in reality, scans are "samples per inch", and paint programs use "pixels per inch." We favor simple ideas and simple speech these days! :(

And coincidentally, I'm as happy with the C design as I am the L. Some characters were more difficult to realize than others. I had a ball with Q, not that it shows. :)

Would anyone like to venture forth and draw one of these bitmap drop caps? You are all free to do what you please with them, as long as you don't take credit for their invention, try to sell them, or use them as a promotion you repost. This is what Creative Commons licensing essentially says, by the way.

I want our membership to have the broadest possible usage of them. They took me long enough to invent (several of them on a sketch pad in the hospital!); you might as well get the most mileage out of them.

Enjoy!

Nice work Rik, well laid out and I do prefer the L in #5 fits nicely with the text. =D>

Stygg

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Originally Posted by Gare

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Thanks for your input and comments, Gary and stygg.

Gary: When you say, "Would anyone like to venture forth and draw one of these bitmap drop caps?"
Do you mean:
1. Come up with something new to replace the letters.
(Which would require quite a bit of imagination. And more often than not, it's extremely difficult to better an original.)
or
2. Recreate the letters (which would be quite a challenge).

Now that you mention it, Rik, I'd invite anyone to visualize a more fitting design for any of the characters, but I meant, "Recreate an original using vector shapes." By vectorizing them, they can be scaled to fit any size. The bitmap can go up to about 5" on a side if you use poor resolution like an inkjet printer.

Oh, just have fun with them and don't listen to me any more! :)

-g

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gare

Now that you mention it, Rik, I'd invite anyone to visualize a more fitting design for any of the characters, but I meant, "Recreate an original using vector shapes." By vectorizing them, they can be scaled to fit any size. The bitmap can go up to about 5" on a side if you use poor resolution like an inkjet printer.

Oh, just have fun with them and don't listen to me any more! :)

-g

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I'm normally up for a challenge, but, that's a very difficult one. Your designs are unique, to say the least.
If anything springs to mind, I'll try and draw it!

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Originally Posted by Rik

I'm normally up for a challenge, but, that's a very difficult one. Your designs are unique, to say the least.
If anything springs to mind, I'll try and draw it!

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You go first Rik, I'll follow your lead! What me chickening out? dead right I am Rik, that's a challenge indeed :D

Stygg

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Originally Posted by stygg2003

You go first Rik, I'll follow your lead! What me chickening out? dead right I am Rik, that's a challenge indeed :D

Stygg

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OK, stygg.
I'll get thing started, then.
And I'm not trying to replace Gary's original letters.
I don't take on impossible things.

All you've got to do (and I'm quoting you here) is 'follow my lead'.
So, come on stygg. Your turn.

Rik, the character is very nice! We might wind up with enough new ones to begin another new TG font in the Typography section!

Cross-pollination on tg is an unexpected but exciting ride, no?

But as I said, for now, it's cool to just play with the alphabet—that's what this monthly sharing thing is all about. You get something, you play with it, it leads to inspiring others and so on.

I'd like to see some "unheard of" uses for the characters. You people always surprise and delight me with novel, sometimes twisted uses for the Giveaways, novel, and in the sort of spirit that encourages creativity. You wouldn't believe how I got the whole alphabet done, some of it the hospital, always trying to make the next character as distinct but as compatible with the following and preceding ones as possible!

My Best,

Gary

Nice one Rik, ok I'll get my thinking head on, me and my mouth! :think:

Stygg

Stygg—

Alternatively, and yes, I do recommend this, do a layout that incorporates some or one of the existing drop caps I provided.


I did not intend this to become an art competition, but instead, just a fun resource. Please, let's have fun with these things, okay? Let's attract members and perhaps we can stretch this inot a call-for-entries down the road. There will be no TV tutorial because the top news on XaraXone this month is Gary Priester's First Looks at Web Designer 11.

So I need to work with what I got here to attract attention and encourage participation, with your support and help!

*****OFF-TOPIC LEG NEWS*****

I'm still supposed to use a walker around the home for six more weeks, but the surgeon I visited yesterday says I'm healed up enough now to take stairs and drive the car. Talk about sudden, unexpected freedom! Barbara, do you have a moment to pop some corn and stream a movie into our Theatre Room?* Attachment 107959

My Best,

Gary

*(She told me to do it myself...)

I did a mixture if you like of drop cap but used one of the Alchemy symbols instead, it's not great but it got me thinking :D

Stygg

I dunno, stygg. I really like it. Perhaps we should collaborate on a follow-up set for alchemists, or make it a typeface?

-g

I've got a small (ha-ha) member challenge for you, perhaps the first out of Xara Xone.

so you know it's gonna be weird.

A group collaboration to draw "Infinity" .

I'll be chairing this, seeing as I don't have a video tute for June, but don't take that as supervision, because this should be a group working together, or not. I'm just going to pick up later, collect the deposit bottles and get some refunds we'll put in the General Fund.

My Best,

Gary

Looks really interesting and intriguing infinity, I'll have another look on Saturday, unfortunately and sadly, I have a funeral to attend on Friday so not really concentrating at the moment. What I did do though, was manage to do a trio of the Alchemy symbols, I know I've posted one already but in this image I've included the shapes I had drawn to make the extrudes and if anyone wants the xar.file of all six images to do what they want with them, I'll gladly upload it.

Best regards

Stygg

Off the top of my ever-shrinking head, stygg, aren't there 7 alchemist metals, or do you count again the first one you did?

They are nicely done and work well with each other. Bring them with you to the Infinity Room when time allows, okay? Sorry you have such a sad occasion to attend to over the weekend, mate. But Infinity, I think, will wait for you.

It always has :)

My Best,

Gary

I'm having trouble signing up for The Little Shoppe of Meshes at Creative Market. I can't come up with an appropriare User Name apparently.

Respectfully,
ron

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Originally Posted by Ron Duke

I'm having trouble signing up for The Little Shoppe of Meshes at Creative Market. I can't come up with an appropriare User Name apparently.

Respectfully,
ron

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Hi Ron—

Well, strictly speaking, my booth at Creative Market has nothing to do with the late, great Xara Xone, so let me test how far off base I can go without being banned:

1. You click the "Littl Shop of Meshes" in my address line. This will take you to a page where you can create an account or use Facebook to sign it. You really should create an account because you'll get a link to six free pieces of content a week in your email, and if you sign in using Facebook, all of Facebook's advertisers will see your transaction because that's the way Mark Zuckerberg conducts business.

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2. When you get to the screen "Create Your Free Account", you click "Continue with email".

3. From there, all you need is a name (I think you have a name, it's "Ron", isn't it?), email address, password, and that's just about the entirety of the membership process.

Ron, I don't think you need to be a member just to browse my models.

But hey thanks for the opportunity to educate, turn members on to a great free resource, and to shamlessly plug my online trunk sale.

My Best,

Gary

Thanks Gare.
Yes, I had got through all that except that it isn't accepting ANY user name I input.
What's the secret to an acceptable user name?

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Originally Posted by Ron Duke

Thanks Gare.
Yes, I had got through all that except that it isn't accepting ANY user name I input.
What's the secret to an acceptable user name?

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Well, it probably shouldn't be vulgar.

I'm kidding.

I think they want a 'nym.

Try:

Duke Motors,

or it's possible they want one single word, no spaces. Not sure.

I'll send you a PM, olay?

-g

Thanks Gare!