Tue, 16 Jun 2026 08:01:49 -0500Give 'em the (big) finger

mr's Preposter.us Blog

One of the fun things we realized could be done with the Printable Type script is making type using "symbol" fonts.


image1.jpeg


We first ran a partial set, but when printed at the same size (24 points) as the alphabet set we ran earlier, the details of some of the symbols got pretty gummed-up by support.

Rerunning them at about 3x that size made a "big" difference.


image2.jpeg


At first this was a somewhat manual process because the symbols we're interested  in go beyond the regular 26 codepoints that make up the english alphabet, so the script had to be modified to render the whole set.  

I modified the script to make working with these fonts a little easier (you can now specify a particular codepoint in the customizer) but it still could use some work to make rendering a full set automatic.

Printing at larger point sizes also revealed some aberrations in the finished product around the edges of the (2D) print.


image4.jpeg


This could be considered charming, but I'm curious to see if I can eliminate it if desired by tweaking some printing settings.  My first guess is that the first layer "squish" might be to blame, and perhaps reducing that or decreasing the overlap between the infill and the outside wall might clean it up.


Jason J. Gullickson, 2026