Anatomy of A Single Line Stencil Font Design

Have you ever noticed how many different, common stencil font designs are out there?   It’s surprising!  They are all so unique and fun to work with. 

I’ve been toying with some stencil font options for the past couple of years.  I’ve put this project down and come back to it so many times!  Then I did some freelance work with a software company to design one for their program, and it gave me the motivation to pick this project back up again and analyze it.  The design elements have proven to be more of a challenge than you might imagine.  Deciding where to make the breaks, where to open the bowls, whether to place unnecessary breaks for the sake of design, etc.  

I had begun several versions but wasn’t happy with them for one reason or another.  Then, I decided to take another look at exactly why I was building this font.  I needed to make a functional font for drafting designs to work with metal, for one.  The stencil elements serve to make it possible for text to be routed out of metal without the lettering falling through on closed bowls. 

There are other uses for this type of font but that is the main audience I was focusing on.  I decided to only modify the elements that were necessary for this to be helpful. 

And so I went back to the drawing board. Should I lean toward aesthetics, or functionality only?  To alter the overall feel of the font minimally, I made breaks at the most unobtrusive spots I could find.  Here's what I came up with:

I would love to know your thoughts on this design, and if you would like to see more like it.  SLF Architect Stencil is finally available and can be purchased at this link:  SLF Architect Stencil

So it's finally "a wrap", and we are ready to roll!  I'm so excited to finally have this ready, and I hope you enjoy it and find it useful.