Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Shields task force/Tutorial

On this page, questions, comments and helpful hints regarding the designing of shields can be posted. Click the link to the right to begin a new discussion.

Shield fonts and starting points
In response to Holderca1's questions on the project talk page, here's a few notes regarding shield fonts (and what font to use) and starting points.


 * After installing Inkscape, the first thing that any shield designer should do is to download the Roadgeek 2005 Fonts. The link to the ZIP file is available in the upper right corner of the page. After downloading and installing the fonts, open Inkscape.
 * With Inkscape open, open either a pre-created shield template available at Wikimedia Commons, or a blank shield. In the case of templates, the size of the text and the font that is used should be preset. For blank shields, a bit more work is required. The easiest way to determine the correct font and text size for that state is to download a pre-existing shield available at Wikimedia Commons. For states that have no shield already created, more work will have to be done, though this will likely be covered in a future discussion.


 * For those unfamiliar with the font series, here's a visual reference to distinguish between, say, Series B, and Series E.


 * [[Image:NC 226A.svg|40px]] || NC 226A shield. Series B.
 * [[Image:NY-252A.svg|50px]] || NY 252A shield. Series C.
 * [[Image:US 20.svg|40px]] || US 20 shield. Series D.
 * [[Image:PA-8.svg|40px]] || PA 8 shield. Series E.
 * }
 * [[Image:PA-8.svg|40px]] || PA 8 shield. Series E.
 * }
 * }


 * As a side note, three of the four shields (all except US 20) above were made using Inkscape.

This is intended to be a brief overview; more details are available on request. -- T M F Let's Go Mets - Stats 18:53, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Great thanks, I had messed around with Inkscape a few weeks back and couldn't figure out how to install the fonts. I tried putting them in the fonts folder but that didn't work.  How do you install the fonts?  --Holderca1 19:14, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
 * What I did was I unzipped the fonts to a temporary folder (like on the Desktop) then opened the Control Panel and went to Fonts. There, under File, I clicked "Install New Font..." and selected all of the fonts in the temporary folder. This process should work; if the fonts still don't show up after performing the above tasks, try restarting your computer. Hope that helps. -- T M F Let's Go Mets - Stats 20:25, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Ah, I was trying to install them just in Inkscape, never thought of installing them on the computer, I will try that. --Holderca1 20:41, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I have been having a problem with the shields, when I create them, they look fine, but when I upload them, the numbers get distorted, any idea on what is causing this and how to fix? --Holderca1 23:07, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Did you remember to convert the text to a path before uploading? If you don't convert the text to a path, then the text becomes, as you said, distorted and oddly-shaped. Sorry if I failed to mention converting text to paths earlier. -- T M F Let's Go Mets - Stats 23:20, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
 * That worked, thanks. --Holderca1 23:25, 7 November 2006 (UTC)