Nick Curtis

Thanks for the Memories…

Fifteen years ago, I embarked on a wonderful voyage of discovery, when I created my very first font with Fontographer 3.15. My maiden voyages were, frankly, rather clunky and amateurish, but I have been told that they showed promise.

Well, sure enough, thanks to the diligent (and patient) efforts of Ilene Strizver, I polished up my craft enough to sell my humble efforts—first as a sideline business and, since 2006, as my full-time job. In total, I have produced over eleven hundred fonts—almost five hundred of them freeware fonts, which I conservatively estimate have been downloaded and enjoyed by over three million people worldwide.

Unfortunately, this past year has brought a series of unanticipated setbacks, culminating in the loss of my wife's beautiful mind and soul to the scourge of alcoholism. In an effort to generate extra income to cover the expenses for her long-term care, I have proposed a number of, I believe, innovative ways to revamp the online font business; unfortunately, those efforts have fallen flat, primarily due to the professional font community's abject fear of crossing the $165 million Elephant in the Room. I even offered a special discount rate of 75% off retail price for full-time students of Typohile Forum. To date, there have been zero takers. Hell: even the webfont kit of one of my own fonts which I purchased from myfonts.com turned out to be an empty folder. Talk about a run of bad luck…

Which leaves my with you, dear readers. If you or someone you know has had fun or made a buck from my humble efforts throughout the years, please donate whatever you can—even a lousy dollar would help—to help me out. I would greatly appreciate it.