What is TypeStick?

TypeStick is a simple program that enables you to easily set type on web pages where the type is made up of individual images, one for each letter of the alphabet.

This works best with bitmapped fonts that are blocky and have no anti-aliasing - using Photoshop or similar make a transparent GIF for each character with a small amount of space to the right and left of each letter.

The idea was originally to allow the type to be scaled - you'd create only the smallest font size you need and you'd get the web-browser to do the scaling. Alas, Apple's Safari browser doesn't scale images in the way I expected - it tries to anti-alias or smooth the images, even if the size you've selected is an exact multiple of the original image size.

Download latest version of TypeStick

TypeStick will soon be available for Classic MacOS, but for now it's just OS X and Windows(while I develop it). It's available as a compressed disk image with one tiny font, EightBit - which I think came from the good people at Dinc!

download current version and get help here - Windows and MacOS X - it's Freeware.

How is it written?

TypeStick is written in RealBasic by Giles Booth.
email typestick@othermachines.org
I used to program a lot in BASIC for the Commodore PET and Sinclair Spectrum, and even in 6502 assembly language a bit. I then didn't use computers for a decade or so and I have problems getting my head round this object-orientated stuff!
The idea came from Jon Ward and it was inspired by the Lomography web site, plus of course the work of the genius Susan Kare who created the original Macintosh system fonts and icons amongst many other fine things.