Seeing as how this is October, and we’re all being swarmed with pink ribbons, I wanted to make a little post for those of you who want to make various printouts and web graphics for this month. The best thing is, most of these goodies will not cost you a cent!

Fonts:

The one font I really wanted to highlight is the one I use on this blog. You see it everywhere: the logo, the ribbons, etc. It is called Ribbon of Hope. This font is FREE to use for personal use only. Since I am using it on this blog, and will probably use it to make things that will be used for cancer awareness fundraising (to the American Cancer Society, of course!), I needed to purchase the commercial license. (A mere $15…well worth it!) This font features not only an alphabet, but also special characters, such as a cancer ribbon, a heart with a ribbon in the middle, and side decorations.

Author: By the Butterfly (Vanessa)
Download personal: http://www.dafont.com/ribbonofhope.font
Site to purchase license: http://bythebutterfly.com/

The next font is called LCR We Remember LSF. Each character of this font eyes with a tear, and awareness ribbon, and a letter/number. It is a FREE personal font. However, you cannot purchase a commercial version, and thus can’t be used for any commercial reasons.

Author: LaChefRene
Download personal: http://www.fontspace.com/lechefrene/lcr-we-remember-lsf

The last font I am spotlighting is called JLR Awareness Ribbons. This font features outlined letters and ribbons instead of solid. This font is not only FREE for personal use, but the author also allows FREE commercial use, as well! Besides the alphabet and number characters, there are also special characters, with various inspirational phrases, and a ribbon by itself.

Author: GorillaBlu
Download personal: http://www.fontspace.com/gorillablu/jlr-awareness-ribbons

 

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ClipArt/Graphics:

If you don’t want to be adding any fonts to your computer to make a cute cancer ribbon, and don’t want to chance using clip art galleries where you might be copyright infringing by using a ribbon on their site, you can easily make your own ribbon in whatever graphic program you are using! The best part is the font to make it is probably already on your computer!

For the sake of this example, I will use Corel’s Paint Shop Pro. (If you’d like to try this program and do not want to buy it, you can download a FREE trial by clicking here.)

To start, open the software. Go to the menu, select “File”, and then “New”. I like to make the background transparent, so check the box next to transparent. You can make the size anything you want…something like “500” by “500” will do. Select the text tool on the left sidebar (this will look like a “T”.) Click somewhere on the canvas, and type a “-” (hyphen). Highlight the hyphen you just made, and go on the menu and pull down the “font” box…change it to “Webdings”. Again, this is a font everyone should have on their computer already.  Just to see what you are doing better, change the size to something bigger, like 72. Even though that is the highest option, you can highlight the number, and type your own in, to make the size whatever you want. To change the color of the ribbon to the awareness type you are making, go to the color selection on the right. Change the background color to whatever color you want, and the foreground color will be the border if you choose to make one. (In my case, I chose teal as a background/fill color, and black as the foreground/border color.) Also on the top toolbar, where it says “create  as”, I usually select “floating”. If you are more familiar with graphic programs, you can get fancier and fill it with a gradient, instead, or add a drop shadow. The end result will look something like this:

Of course, you CAN also take your chances with a lot of the creative awareness clip art already out there. Just be careful that anything you use is open free usage. Lots of clip art sites charge you for commercial usage.

 

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I hope this helped out a lot of you with your awareness graphic making, or at least pointed you in the right direction!

Happy Crafting!