Welcome to ToyBlock Sampler, a free typeface designed for your Macintosh and postscript printer. This typeface has samples of six fonts which I am selling for a small fee. I hope you find it useful and interesting, but if you do not, remember that it is mostly meant as a way of letting you know about some typefaces which are much nicer than this one.
On the upper case letters are letters for the font Swanville, Glitzy, and Sansville. Swanville was developed originally as part of a typeface called ChooChooOne, which has little train cars with the letters on it. I wanted a very bold style letter with a little serif on it that was reminiscent of passenger cars in the 19th century. A sample of ChooChooOne and ChooChooTwo can be seen on some of the punctuation keys. These two fonts are among the strangest typefaces you will find.
Glitzy is my variation of a very popular Art Deco style. I have seen a dozen or so variations on this style, and here is another.
Sansville resulted when I took the serif off Swanville and then cleaned up the letters. It is a very bold font, and if you do not have a font like it in your collection (some very nice ones are available form Adobe, but they are also quite expensive), you will find this one very useful.
On the lower case letters are letters from two typefaces that have a 19th-century, Victorian style. From a to m the letters are from Saloon, and from n to z they are from Valenteena.
Finally, on a few of the punctuation keys are blocks with items from a font of dingbats and borders. It has leaves, clocks, various types of stars, and much more.
All of these fonts are display fonts, which means they are not meant for large blocks of text but for headlines, posters, etc. All have only upper case letters. Rather than simply repeat the upper case letters on the lower case keys, I have put condensed versions or smaller versions of the letters on some of them. On others the lower case letters are identical to the upper case letters. However, in cases where I have set some pairwise kerning, I have usually spent more time with the upper case set of letters. (Most of the typefaces have some kerning built in. Page layout programs such as Pagemaker can use use it, but usually word processor programs can not.)
As for ToyBlockSampler, there are some special effects on the option number keys. To put a top and a left side on a block, type Option 2, option 1, and the letter. To put a top and a right side on a block, type option 3, letter, option 4. Also, the space bar will give you an empty block on the printer (which will not show on your screen), and if you really want an empty space, use the number key (the thing above the 3).
If you do not know how to install this font, the directions are quite simple. First, you should understand that the Macintosh uses two fonts, one for the screen and another for the printer. The screen font (or bit-mapped font) is in the little suitcase. You need the Font-DA mover, which Apple provided with your computer, to move this. If you have this program on your disk, double click on the suitcase named ToyBlockSampler. This will open it up on one side of a screen. On the other side you must open up the system in your system file, and when you do so, you will see a list of fonts presently installed in your system. Click on the name of ToyBlockSampler, and they click on copy. When the name ToyBlock Sampler appears with the other fonts installed on your system, the screen font has been successfully installed.
To install the printer font, simply drag the icon that looks like a printer and which is named ToyBloSam into the system folder. You must have a postscript printer in order to use this. If you try to print on a dot-matrix printer, you will print the screen font, and the results will be disappointing.
After you take a look at the letters on the toy blocks, I am sure you will be eager to know how to get these typefaces illustrated there and described here. They are available as volumes two and three of my typeface offerings. Both contain six fonts. Volume Two includes the following: Sansville, SansvilleBold, (which is really an extended version of Sansville), Swanville, Glitzy, Dingville, and ChooChooOne. Volume Two includes Saloon, SaloonExtended, SaloonFrilled (which adds interior decoration to Saloon), Valenteena, ValenteenaStarved, (a narrow version of Valenteena) and ChooChooTwo (which has letters from Saloon on boxcars--a truly weird and wonderful typeface).
Volumes 2 and 3 are available for the low price of $25.00 each. (Volume One is still available for $15.00, and is illustrated on the public domain font called StalingraDemo. It includes Zirkle, Bouncer, Dinner, and Stalingrad, and several variations of these. The price has gone up because I think the fonts in volumes 2 and 3 are better than those in 1. On the other hand, I cannot raise price too much because most people have limited uses for display fonts.) All three volumes are available for very reasonable price of $55.00. Send your money to:
Robert Schenk
Ingrid Germayne, Publisher
Box 404
Rensselaer, IN 47978
Also, be sure to share ToyBlockSampler with all your computer friends who have access to a postscript printer, and be especially sure that you include this documentation with it.
P.S. If you have any questions, you may write me at the above address, but if you want a response, you must include a self-addressed, stamped envelope (or money with an order).
