• Text effects in MonoGame and XNA

    In MonoGame you can load a SpriteFont in an XNB file created using the XNA Content Pipeline. You can then write text using SpriteBatch.DrawString. If you want to add effects to your text, there is no way to do this using just the DrawString method. There is a way however to create a SpriteFont that has effects built into this.

    There are two ways of building a font using the XNA Content Pipeline. The first way is using a Sprite Font Description. This uses an XML file and is an easy to compile a Sprite Font from a font on you computer. This is easy to make changes to, but it won't help us here. …

  • 15,000 people have downloaded Font Picker

    I created Font Picker to solve a problem I had and released it in September 2008 hoping that other people would find it helpful. Since then 15,000 people have downloaded it and its page has had 57,000 unique views. That makes it by far my most successful personal project so far.

    Font Picker is a simple AIR app that helps you choose a suitable typeface for a project. It's down to word of mouth and the wonders of the Internet that so many people have found it. I got my first peak in traffic when it was mentioned in a Boag World podcast. I'm really greatful for that as it the break that lead to …

  • Choosing a font

    When I do a piece of design that involves typography I spend ages choosing the right font. The font that will endow the work with the right feeling and the font that is most similar to the one I've got pictured in my head.

    This normally takes ages, but I've written a Font Picker program in Flash to help me do it. It shows you a sample of your chosen text displayed using all the fonts on your computer. You can then whittle down this list by removing unsuitable fonts.

    The best thing is that this works straight from your browser and still displays the fonts that are on your computer. I've also …