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The Society of Typographic Aficionados is organizing Font Aid VI: Aster Affects — a project uniting the typographic and design communities to raise funds for Red Cross relief efforts after the events of Hurricane Sandy.

The project theme will be represented in a typeface consisting entirely of asterisks.

Why the asterisk?

An asterisk can denote something that requires attention — and an event of this magnitude and impact certainly deserves some attention. The asterisk can also provide *emphasis* to important information amidst fields of plain text. The root of the word comes from the Greek astēr or “star” - signifying hope and light. In computer terms, it’s a wildcard character … and hurricanes are certainly wild and unpredictable.

This submission deadline is Saturday, November 17th, 2012.

See the submission guidelines for more information.

Thanks in advance for your help.

— Grant

Ashton Kutcher Affects?

Awesome! I'll try to have something done...

n.

So, you want the asterisks to descend and fill the em, as opposed to a normal asterisk sized and aligned for cap/ascenders, with a normal proportion (25% of the em), below the baseline.

Have I got that right?

In practice they [have to] scale everybody's work anyway.

Great idea BTW - I'm on it too!

hhp

how does making an all asterisk font help Sandy victims exactly?

Did you read the history?

The money from sales of the font goes to help the victims.

hhp

brockfrench, that's a sweet asterisk! I particularly like the way that there are two implied rotated squares sitting on top of each other, creating tension between the rigidity of the squares and the fluidness of the arms.
5star, I like the lightning bolts in your design. I also picked up on the storm theme, using raindrops in my asterisk. I also made a version where one of the "petals" is an extra big raindrop pouring out. Which do people like better?

Thanks Neil, Stephen; looking good.
It's going to be interesting to see the variations in the number of points on all of these asterisks.

Stephen (sgh), the asymmetrical one is more interesting, and in my opinion the better idea too. It would need a bit of tweaking, though. Maybe you can make a progression in size of the drops.

I like the top one just fine... Maybe submit both and let them sort it out.

Chris Lozos posted his contribution on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dezcom/8173484241

“Ashton Kutcher Affects?”

@ryan — Good lord, I hope not.

“So, you want the asterisks to descend and fill the em […] Have I got that right?”

@david — Yes, that’s correct. We’ll be treating the asterisks more like dingbats than their typographically correct parents. However, since we’re producing the final face as OpenType, we could provide a stylistic set which sizes and positions the glyphs as per usual … I kind of like that idea, actually.

To everyone else, thanks for participating.

The examples you’ve shown so far are wonderful.

Keep it up!

Hi all, this is my first post.
I saw some submissions on twitter and I'd like to contribute.

I made this for my twitter and forum avatars, would this be acceptable?

It's very pretty, and meaningful.

The narrow gaps might suffer at small sizes.

hhp

This glyph from an unfinished typeface immediately came to mind; from my typically abundant artboard flotsam...

Here's what I submitted:

And here's what I said:
I had the great fortune of living in New York City this past summer while I studied type at Cooper Union's Type@Cooper program. Like many people, the city is full of my friends and family. When I think about Hurricane Sandy, I am brought to the idea of 'balance.' It has affected the balance of so many people's lives and daily routines. And, the hurricane itself was brought on by a great imbalance in our climate. Many of those affected will return to their 'normal' quickly, while others will have to find a completely new balance. My asterisk was based off of an 'unbalanced' rectangle, repeated 6 times.

Thanks for noticing, Riccardo!
Here are the two variations:

It started off as an asterisk. Then it was sucked up and spit back out by this great big gritty giant vortex.

@ This Machine Floats;

nice!

I see Fleurons of Hope has gone from Myfonts, which is a shame.

Still, keep up the good work.

Tim

Russel,
I know you are WAY too young to have ever seen one of these but your design above brought back warm memories of my teenage record collection:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/45_rpm_adapter

:-)

…with a touch of Woolmark, one of my all time favourites.

Tim

~ :)

I certainly am not way to young to remember playing stax-o-45 RPM wax on the hi-fi with the funny plastic thingies in the middle.

I just act that way, Chris.

:o)