How To – Fonts

How to Use a Heart Font In Your Next Design

Leave a Comment / Design + Resources, How To - Fonts /

My love of heart fonts is certainly no secret! I’ve already written one blog post that goes over heart fonts, how to use them, and what some of my favorite heart fonts are, so I figured why not do a post with some fun ideas using these fonts? (Just as an aside, you can see my entire Heart Font Bundle at a glance in the first post!) The use of these types of fonts are on the rise, and since the demand seems to be there, font designers like me are paying close attention to what y’all want!

The heart symbols aren’t really “standard” features in the font, though, so I thought that it might be helpful for heart font lovers to learn a bit about how to access those features!

autumn love popular hearts font

My Most Popular Hearts Font

If you’ve looked at my blog at all, you’ll know about my strange obsession & affection for my font, Autumn Love. Autumn Love, at the time of writing, is the only font I offer that includes heart connectors, which you can use in place of the space between letters. For that reason, I think it’s best to use this font again as we go over how to do the thing, whatever “the thing” may be for you! Personally, I think this font makes a great candidate for t-shirts, mugs, or invitations since the text is a fun, bouncy one & the hearts it uses are whimsical & fun, definitely helping to set the tone for a light & fun event.

Autumn Love is a pretty robust font – the download includes your standard upper and lowercase characters, as well as numbers, punctuation, and Western European Language Support. It’s also PUA-encoded. PUA stands for “private use area” and is essentially a fancy way of saying that each & every character – even the special ones – have a code attached to them which makes them easy to find whenever you use Character Map or FontBook, and access the extra features.

Those extra features, though, are where the fun begins! There are 132 alternate characters in this font, comprised of left and right swirly swashes, left and right heart swashes, heart connectors, and cute little heart icons dotting the lowercase i and j characters. I’ve also included some heart symbols as doodle elements. It also includes 11 ligatures – ligatures are combinations of letters that are automatically programmed together to look best. Take for example a word that has a double t in it – instead of two separate t characters that appear to have overlapping crossbars, the tt ligature shows up as one single character with a single crossbar for both! It’s up to the artist & their own personal style to include extra stuff like this!

You can find Autumn Love here, if you want to check it out!

Accessing the Heart Symbols

I highly recommend using Adobe CC software to access the heart symbols. It’s industry standard, as far as professional designers go, so many of you will already have this available to you! Adobe CC software makes it super easy – it’s really as simple as highlighting an individual character, viewing the options available, and selecting the option that fits best for you!

If you don’t have Illustrator or Photoshop available to you, or you’re running an older version than CC, there are other ways to get to those special characters! I mentioned Character Map (PC) and FontBook (Mac) before — and that’s exactly how you’ll get to those extra characters. You can reference my blog post on accessing OpenType features for a full explanation. In short, though, you’ll be able to search & sort through all characters included, make your selection, and then copy paste into the program you’re working in! This is applicable to basic programs such as Microsoft Word, or the Mac app Pages, or any program that you might be using on your computer. This is also how you’ll take your design from just ok and cute to absolutely wow in Cricut’s Design Space. (It’s unfortunate that Design Space doesn’t fully support OpenType features just yet, but hopefully, the developers will make this a feature soon!)

I mentioned that I’ve included some doodle heart symbols, as well. If you’re working in a program that supports OpenType features — meaning, Adobe CC products or other comparable software — you’ll be able to access these symbols easily!

With your ligatures turned on, you can type a few specific symbols, like @@ or $$$. Those characters will automatically be replaced with the heart doodles! I opted to program it this way out of convenience, because sometimes hunting down a symbol is a little tedious. (You can also search for these symbols in Character Map or FontBook, as well, and copy paste them into your chosen program.)

One thing that I love about these doodles is that they fit perfectly with the aesthetic of the font. Because they’re handdrawn, they have a more soft, handmade look & feel than you might find if you were to use something like a heart emoji or a heart icon in a mouse-made symbols font or icon set. There are solid and open versions for each one, as well! Don’t you just love that?!

heart font extra features

What Would You Use a Heart Font For?

Social Media

I personally think that there are limitless uses for a font like this, which is why I put together so many image examples when I listed this beauty for sale! Quote graphics on your Facebook page, Instagram or other social media accounts would be a great fit. Using it on ads or ad items would also be a great use – it’s very eye-catching, and the heart details give it a little extra something that your audience will appreciate!

Invitations + Menu Use

I also love the idea of using this font for a wedding invitation or a save the date – it already has heart text symbols in it, which makes it absolutely perfect for things that are love-related. If you’re the kinda gal who considers emoji use in these kinds of items, this style of font is definitely worth a look as your plans being to take shape.

Autumn Love would make a great choice to use on a food menu, too! How many times have you sat down to read a restaurant’s menu & it’s just the same, boring font that everyone uses everywhere? If you put your menu together with this font, it’s sure to be a conversational topic, too, which is always a good idea for meals.

T-Shirts + Craft Projects

This style also works well on a shirt design – Autumn Love does come perfectly paired with a sans, so it takes the guesswork out of choosing a second font to work with. Speaking of shirt designs, I’ve seen this font used quite a bit in the crafting world. It cuts really well on a Cricut machine – I even used it myself whenever I was making labels for my kitchen containers. (Insert a pic here of these)

Logos and branding are a given – I can’t help but try each of my fonts out in a logo mock-up because of where I started my design journey. If I’m happy with the result in a logo, I always think that my customers will be, as well!

Because Autumn Love is also quite legible, even at a smaller size, it would be great for websites, too, or even WordPress theme creation – it would look fantastic on header elements.

heart font shirt design

Check Out My Website For Even More Fonts

Whether you’re in the market for a single font, or a collection of awesome fonts, I’ve got you covered! Search through my shop to find the perfect fit for your next project – you can even test it before you purchase it!

Or, if you know you want a really fantastic deal – over 200 fonts in a single bundle – you can hop right over, and check out my Handlettered Font Bundle!

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How to Add Fonts to Cricut

Leave a Comment / Crafting, Design + Resources, How To - Fonts /
Here’s the TL;DR summary!
  • Yes, you can use custom fonts in Cricut Design Space!
  • You need to install the font on your computer first.
  • Look in the System Fonts section of Design Space for your newly installed fonts.
  • Design to your heart’s content!

It’s been a minute since I offered up a how-to post, so today we’re going to be addressing how to add fonts to Cricut Design Space.

Here’s the deal. Cricut is the machine, and Design Space is the software you’re using. You can absolutely, positively use custom fonts in Design Space! In fact, you can use any fonts installed on your computer in Design Space.

This is a question I get quite often, especially as it relates to my font bundles…and even more specifically, as it relates to my biggest Handlettered Font Bundle. I get it – for a lot of folks, it feels like a little bit of an investment into their crafting hobby or business! You definitely want to make sure that the fonts are going to work with your software first! Since I provide .otf and .ttf files, you’re golden.

Let me tell you how to do the thing!

You Can’t Upload Fonts to Cricut Design Space.

Don’t worry, though, your project you’ve gotten ready to create is still safe – let me tell you the biggest mistake that Design Space users make as it relates to custom fonts. And before you ask, no, trying to upload them using an iPhone isn’t the biggest mistake I see.

Many of them try to directly upload the fonts to Cricut Design Space.

That won’t work, my friends. This usually results in a frantic email to me, telling me that my fonts “don’t work” in Design Space, they keep getting an error message no matter how many times they try to upload it to Design Space, and it’s entirely the “wrong file type.”

The fonts do work, they are the correct file type – you just need a quick tutorial on what you need to do.

Spoiler alert: It’s really simple.

Just Install the Font File on Your Computer

You need to install the font on your machine first. This is the very first step that you need to take in order to add fonts to Cricut Design Space; I promise, it works!

Getting Your Fonts to Cricut Design Space

Let me give you a quick step-by-step on how to install fonts on your computer! (Just as a heads up, you can find this exact same information on my blog post about how to install fonts – this particular post is just a little more geared toward Design Space users!) These instructions will work with any font download that you find, whether it’s fonts you purchased from me, another designer, or even font downloads from a website that offers free fonts for anyone to download!

I provide OpenType and True Type files in my downloads, as well as webfonts. I would recommend working with the OpenType version – it’s the one that ends in .otf in the zip folder that contains your font download!

Mac Instructions – follow these simple steps!
1. First, download the font!  

Once downloaded, you’ll need to access your browser downloads the same way you would any other download.  You’ll want to save the files to your computer — the easiest way would be to drag to your desktop.  My font files (.otf, .ttf, and web font files) are zipped up together.  You’ll need to extract the files first.  This should be a simple double click on the zipped up file, and confirming any dialog boxes that pop up.

font installation on Mac computers
2. Extract (Unzip) The Font Files

Once the folder is unzipped, it’ll reveal the contents I previously mentioned.  I provide various formats for your convenience, but you will only need to install a single file.  I would recommend the .otf file for installation.  Double-click the file, or right click on the file so that the menu appears.  (Image on the left of the right click option!)  Select Font Book when it appears from the Open With menu.

Side note with a little info: FontBook is the program that comes standard on a Mac machine to assist with font installation and organization. It also functions to provide a glimpse of the glyphs that are included in the font.

3. Install the Font File

FontBook will pop up with a little window for installation.  Click the “Install” button.  Similarly, you can copy/paste the font file directly into your computer’s font folder.  Command+Shift+C will bring up your computer.  Double-click Macintosh HD (or whatever your hard drive is named), then double-click the Library folder.  Within the Library folder, you’ll find the Fonts folder.  Paste the font files in this folder – pasting the .otf in this folder means that it’s automatically installed on your system.

font installation of Spring Market on Mac computers
PC Instructions – for Windows Users
1. First, download the font!  

Once downloaded, you’ll need to access your browser downloads the same way you would any other download.  You’ll want to save the files to your computer — the easiest way would be to drag to your desktop.  My fonts (.otf, .ttf, and web fonts) are zipped up together.  You’ll need to extract the files first.  This should be a simple double click on the zipped up file, and confirming any dialog boxes that pop up. Overall, the process is the same for any Windows machine.

2. Extract (Unzip) The Font Files

Once the folder is unzipped, it’ll reveal the contents I previously mentioned.  I provide various formats for your convenience, but you will only need to install a single file.  I would recommend the .otf file for installation.  Double-click the file, or right click on the file so that the menu appears.  (Image below of the right click option!) 

3. Install the Font File

For a Windows machine, you can right click the font file, and then select “Install” from the menu that pops up.  You can also copy/paste them into your computer’s font folder.  That can be accessed by your Start Menu > Control Panel > Appearance and Themes > Fonts.  Simply paste them in there!

I mentioned above that a FontBook on a Mac machine will allow you to view all characters contained within a font. On a Windows machine, you can use Character Map for this! I personally use a Mac for all of my design work, but I have used Windows machines before so I’ve been able to use both programs to tool through font selections!

font installation on Windows computers
font installation on Mac computers
A Few Tips & Tricks
  • If the font you just installed doesn’t show up in the program you’re using, restart your program!
  • You cannot drag & drop the .zip file into your system’s font folder — make sure you unzip it.
  • You cannot install the webfonts on your computer; in most cases you won’t ever touch these files.

Using System Fonts in Design Space

Wait, what does “System Fonts” even mean & how do you use it on a project?

That, crafters, is what Design Space calls the fonts that are installed on your computer. The “system” part is your computer – Design Space accesses what you have installed, so you can use the fonts you downloaded in Design Space! You can filter the fonts you have access to in Design Space by selecting the dropdown menu with the text tool. When you select “System Fonts” it’ll bring up everything you have installed on your machine. Easy peasy, right?!

Give it a try!

Select a system font of your choice from the font dropdown, and adjust your font size if needed. I picked Autumn Love for this example! I chose a script font for an important reason – this type of font style needs a few adjustments before sending to your Cricut machine for cutting, so I thought it might be a good thing to address.

using system fonts in Design Space

When you select the text tool, a text box automatically appears.

Now, type!

You’ll notice that script fonts have the letters separated. This isn’t “normal” for the font — definitely not the way font designers intend it to look — but this is normal for Design Space. You can adjust the letter spacing pretty easily by making the letter spacing number smaller.

using system fonts in Design Space

Even after doing this, you may notice some of the letters still aren’t connected – there’s also a simple solution to this. In your Layers panel, click the ungroup button. This puts each letter on its own layer so you can move the characters individually!

Please, for the love of everything fonts, adjust your letter spacing so that the font looks how the designer intended it to. This is probably my biggest pet peeve with Design Space.

using system fonts properly in design space
using system fonts properly in Design Space

You can make use of the search bar to filter your font choices if you know the name of the font you’d like to use, or you can just scroll and find it by the font name!

There are other options in the design panel, but we’ll address how to use those things in another blog post in the future. What’s important is that you’ve got this whole how to add fonts to Cricut thing down!

Make sure before you send to your Cricut machine that you weld the design so that the letters come all the way together as one piece! That is super important whenever you’re using a script font. That’s really all there is to it! Now you’ll be able to use custom fonts for your design projects!

What About Cricut Fonts?

You’ll notice that, in addition to system fonts, you also have the option to select Cricut Fonts as one of the filtering options. Whenever you do, you’ll be faced with a lengthy list of fonts that are available to you, either for free or for an additional (usually small) fee, directly from Cricut.

It’s a quite robust selection, and it does make it quite easy to add to your font collection via the Design Space interface. You can purchase these fonts onesie-twosie, but it’s also important to note that if you have the Cricut Access subscription, you’ll get access to over 500 fonts in Cricut Design Space!

So, what’s the difference between using Cricut Fonts versus finding your own custom fonts, downloading, & installing them? The fact that you get to keep the font files, that’s what! While the Cricut Access subscription is super handy and full of good stuff, you don’t actually get to have the fonts installed on your computer – they’re only available through Design Space. For most folks, that’s not a problem – I would assume that anyone purchasing fonts for their Cricut machine would likely only be using them for the machine…but if you’re a designer like I am, and you routinely make use of fonts in your daily work, it sure is handy to be able to use said fonts in whatever design program you’d like…whether that be using the font in Cricut Design Space, Illustrator, Photoshop…you get the point, right?

A Few Other Tips & Tricks

OpenType fonts (as opposed to True Type) are extremely robust with features and extra design components, and newer versions of software make it easy to find & use those features. Unfortunately, Design Space’s latest edition doesn’t quite fully support OpenType features as readily as font designers like me would want. (True Type fonts do include the features, as well, but they’re not as easily accessible with that particular file type.)

I often get asked, “How do you get those swooshy lines?” or “Where do I find the letters with the hearts?”

Those are the OpenType features. But don’t worry, you can still use them in Design Space; it just takes a few extra steps. One of my most referenced tutorials is for accessing OpenType features, so I would highly recommend heading there to read about how to get to all of the extra features. In a nutshell, though, you’ll need to locate the special character, then copy/paste the extra characters from Character Map (if you’re using a Windows machine) or FontBook (if you’re on a Mac). It may be a little tedious at first, but once you understand the process, it’s only a few extra steps to take your design from nice to WOW.

I will eventually be putting together a step by step blog post, but there are tutorials that already exist for this type of thing that you can search for!

Do you want a huge selection of fonts in Cricut Design Space?

Check out my Handlettered Font Bundle. Yes, you had to know I’d throw a shameless plug in there. But also, crafters purchase this bundle all the time – it’s got so many awesome fonts in there that are perfect for cutting because they have a super smooth edge. Using handlettered fonts like these give your project an extra special look & feel! I know the number of projects is endless, but I especially love seeing these fonts being used for t shirts and mug designs – I’ve also seen a few crafts where the fonts were used to make lovely greeting cards, which I thought was a great idea!

This particular bundle is awesome because it includes so many fonts – more than 200!! Don’t worry about licensing, either – it includes personal and commercial use, so you can sell the crafts you make using these fonts!

Gimme That Bundle!
handlettered font bundle

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How I Learned Font Making

Leave a Comment / How To - Fonts /
how i learned font making

I was fortunate enough to stumble upon a font making course called Learn Font Making, taught by Teela from Every-Tuesday.  You can find her course by clicking HERE.  The information and support that Teela has provided has been invaluable, and I cannot recommend her course enough.  Without a doubt, I would certainly not be able to do the things I’m currently doing without her help!

Teela also offers other courses that may be of interest to you if hand-lettering is something you wish to learn!

Fantastic Flourishes

Bounce Lettering

How I Learned Font Making Read More »

Accessing OpenType Features

Leave a Comment / For Font Designers, How To - Fonts /

How to Access OpenType Features

(aka, the goodies in your font!)

opentype feature fonts

I love a good feature-rich font, don’t you?

In general, once you’ve downloaded + installed your font on your machine, it should show up in any program that accesses your machine’s installed fonts, like Word, Powerpoint, or even your vinyl cutting programs. Not all of those programs are cut out for accessing OpenType Features, though.

What are OpenType features, you ask? They’re the extra goodies — swashes + flourishes, ligatures, alternate characters, and such.  Not all fonts are created equal — some fonts are more minimal in their features, and some might not have any extra goodies at all.  If you try to find goodies, and you don’t find any treasure, don’t sweat it.  It probably means that the font didn’t come with any extra bells & whistles.

Some older versions of programs you might use don’t make it easy to access OpenType features (there’s a work-around below!) but newer versions are making it a bit more easy. You’ll need to do a little bit of reading to figure it out, but once you have that info, you’ll be unstoppable!

If you’d like to watch a quick video demonstration, you can check out this YouTube video where I show you how to access OpenType features. Please be aware, this video is geared toward Mac users, but a similar process can be used for PC users.

The Easy Button

There are a few different ways to access those OpenType features.  This is the first way.  Well, first-and-a-half, and both are the easiest, least time-consuming methods, but they require special software that is OpenType friendly.

The first way is the easiest way, using Adobe CC products, like Adobe Illustrator or Adobe Photoshop. Please note that older versions of the program may not have these capabilities like the most recent, up-to-date versions. In Illustrator or Photoshop, you can easily bring up the Glyphs panel by going to Window > Glyphs. The font’s full character set will display, and you can scroll/select the character you need!  A simple double-click with your Type Tool selected will insert the character into the box.

A second, slightly easier way — as long as the designer has programmed it this way — is to use your Type Tool, type out what you need it to say, and then use your cursor to highlight the individual characters. The options for the character should pop up in a box, making it easy to select. See?! One and a half ways 🙂  Check out the highlight + select option below!

The LESS Easy Button

(but still not too difficult)
 
Note: This is the method you will need to use with Cricut Design Space, Silhouette Studio (Basic), Canva, Procreate, Word, Pages, & a few other software types. These programs are NOT OpenType friendly, so you will have to go through a few extra steps to use the full range of characters.

The second way is a bit more tedious, but provides a work-around for anyone needing to access those special characters.  I program my fonts to be PUA-encoded, which means that all of the extra characters will show up in the Private Use Area (PUA) of a character map, annotated with a unicode of “EXXX” where the Xs are numbers assigned to any individual glyph. 

Mac users can use FontBook for this, and PC users can use the standard Character Map that comes on your Windows machine.  You’ll simply need to scroll through the characters, locate the one you’d like to use, and then copy/paste it into the program you’re working in! 

In FontBook, you’ll need to ensure you have Repertoire View turned on — you can find that by clicking the button that looks like four little boxes at the top of your screen.

You can double click on the font you wish to view, and scroll to see all glyphs available, make your selection to copy the glyph, and then pop back over to the program you’re working in to paste it!

In Character Map, with the appropriate font selected, make sure you click Advanced View.  Make sure the spot that says Group by has Unicode Subrange selected.  Scroll all the way to the bottom of the Group by window.  You can then group by Private Use Characters.

All of those special goodies should show up for you right there — then, you can copy/paste to your heart’s content!

Pro Tip: If you’re trying to use OpenType features on your iPad or iPhone, you can download the paid app Unicode Character Viewer. The app is $1.99 (as of December 2025), and will allow you to look up fonts installed on your device, copy the glyph you’d like to use, and then paste the glyph into the program of your choice, like Design Space or Procreate.

Bonus Suggestion

 

As I mentioned in my post about how to install fonts, OpenType fonts are sorta the new kids on the block.  Since these feature-rich fonts are on the rise, other programs that access your computer’s installed fonts need to keep up.  Some newer versions of software, like Word or Pages, do have options to make finding + using those awesome goodies a bit easier.  If the software you’re using is relatively new, I would suggest Googling that software + version, along with accessing OpenType features.  You might just find a set of instructions floating around there that makes it even easier than the hunt for the perfect alternate through FontBook or Character Map.

If you want to check out Resfeber Script, shown in this post, you can find that here, along with a ton of other commercial use fonts!

Questions? Drop Me a Line!

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