What the huck is Hands of Skill all about?
Hands of Skill is my one person font foundry where I turn all of my experiences, interests, and whims into fonts that I then ask you to trade money for.
I grew up in Southern California in an area that was a culture clash of gangs, skateboarding, punk, heavy metal, low-brow and my first love - graffiti. This culminated in the rich, and odd aesthetic that you'll find in my fonts.
Starting in 1991, I spent an unhealthy amount of time writing my name on things that weren't always mine. I then started studying graphic design and became addicted to font design.
This ugly little site is my little corner of the web where I take all of this nonsense and turn it into fonts for you to use to vandalize your own designs.
Why is everything on this stupid site $11?!
I read a random article about the #11 that said it represents balance.
It said a bunch of other stuff that I didn't care enough about to remember but that idea of balance stuck with me.
I liked it because - for my big boy career, I've been a long time software developer. While I do get to flex a little creative muscle by solving challenging problems, I don't get much opportunity to throw down real creative design work.
Hands of Skill is my way of balancing that corporate world with my creative world.
I expanded on that #11 (in a possibly contrived way) to think of it as a 1:1 relationship between myself and people like you who appreciate my work enough to purchase it and support me in creating more.
Pushing this 11 thing maybe a little too far, it's also a balance of me creating good work at an affordable price for other designers to purchase without spending a ridiculous amount of money.
So, if you can dig that, dig into the fonts. They'll always be $11.