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Really impressive and fun to build I'm sure. I bought an Axidraw last year to play around with making fake signatures of fake people and as well we were getting

Really impressive and fun to build I'm sure. I bought an Axidraw last year to play around with making fake signatures of fake people and as well we were getting a ton of Etsy orders and we always write a hand written note, but we couldn't keep up at Christmas time and my wife's wrist was breaking, so it saved our bacon when we had to write like 600 notes in 6 weeks. The fact that you have to keep replacing the sheet and realigning is definitely a drag, but we made a system that worked well enough for us. Making the SVG letters is a pain and we are working on designing our own font from my wife's handwriting, but you can at least SVGize a picture of your writing and then touch it up in an editor. Gives a good excuse to buy lots of different fun pens and paper, but yeah it's annoying when a pen stops writing half a letter and I'm not sure if it's just an ink thing or a pressure thing. We've gotten positive reviews that mention our handwritten notes at least and lots of comments on great service and such, so we think it makes a difference.

aarondf 5y ago
Careful posting that here, you might get called Moloch (whatever that is) or an amoral douchebag! Seriously though, Axidraws rule. Glad it's working for y'all.
- CosmicShadow 5y ago
  I wanted to show my support for you and the cool things you did. Heaven forbid you participate in a direct mail campaign, a legitimate advertising method that is for sale by the post office themselves and as an entrepreneur try to optimize it. I get 0-4 pieces of junk mail a day, so who cares if one is hand written. There is no case where it will all go that way. You are an entrepreneur, feel no shame for those who don't get it. Most of the time it's not worth posting anything, because very few will appreciate it or not be a douche, even on HN. It's sad that it has to feel that way, that I'd rather not share cool stuff, because people will be dinks, but it's just not worth the mental exhaustion most of the time.
  - aarondf 5y ago
    I really appreciate you saying this, truly. Thank you.
wongarsu 5y ago
I think people will be able to tell the difference between the handwritten SVG and the font on anything more than a short paragraph. Our brains are great at finding patterns, and the regular shapes of fonts are such a pattern. So depending on your use case your time might be better spend on improving the handwriting->vector pipeline instead of designing a font (not that that isn't fun too)
- CosmicShadow 5y ago
  Yeah. We usually only do like one or two sentences, so it's harder to tell and a font might make it quicker, but I doubt we'll end up finding it easier in the long run than just writing something and SVGing it.

aarondf 5y ago

Careful posting that here, you might get called Moloch (whatever that is) or an amoral douchebag! Seriously though, Axidraws rule. Glad it's working for y'all.

CosmicShadow 5y ago
I wanted to show my support for you and the cool things you did. Heaven forbid you participate in a direct mail campaign, a legitimate advertising method that is for sale by the post office themselves and as an entrepreneur try to optimize it. I get 0-4 pieces of junk mail a day, so who cares if one is hand written. There is no case where it will all go that way. You are an entrepreneur, feel no shame for those who don't get it. Most of the time it's not worth posting anything, because very few will appreciate it or not be a douche, even on HN. It's sad that it has to feel that way, that I'd rather not share cool stuff, because people will be dinks, but it's just not worth the mental exhaustion most of the time.
- aarondf 5y ago
  I really appreciate you saying this, truly. Thank you.

wongarsu 5y ago

I think people will be able to tell the difference between the handwritten SVG and the font on anything more than a short paragraph. Our brains are great at finding patterns, and the regular shapes of fonts are such a pattern. So depending on your use case your time might be better spend on improving the handwriting->vector pipeline instead of designing a font (not that that isn't fun too)

CosmicShadow 5y ago
Yeah. We usually only do like one or two sentences, so it's harder to tell and a font might make it quicker, but I doubt we'll end up finding it easier in the long run than just writing something and SVGing it.