Celtic Knot Font - Create custom Celtic Knotwork on your computer!

Notes from our customers on the projects they created using the Celtic Knot Font:

W. David Webster of ThikSkin Design; airbrush knotwork design on a motorcycle tank and fender:

I'm a custom painter specializing in airbrush and pinstripe graphics. I thought you might be interested in this. A client of mine was in the market for custom paint. My customer, being of Irish decent and I of Scottish decent decided on some knotwork. I had been to design school and learned all about the book of Kells and the art of my ancestors. I even own some books on how to draw knotwork. Though it's still a daunting task to figure this stuff out for a motorcycle tank and fender....

Then I found Clanbadge...I used the Celtic Knot Font to build 85% of my design in Illustrator. Once I had it laid out, I then converted the image to outlines and proceeded to lay a heavy arc warp and copied and welded the 2 halves together. The shamrock, done by manual tracing with a pen tool, was stuck in middle and presto. Bagpipes could be heard in the background. The art was put through my vinyl cutter and I spent quite a while weeding the mask ( picking out unwanted pieces ) applied, sprayed, removed and cleared and buffed.

Guy Whelan; leather motorcycle saddlebags:

I designed and built the saddlebags and used your Celtic Knot Font for the carving design. I started by using a Mac and SimpleText to create a repeating knot with straight areas, ends and corners. I then copied the text into Adobe Illustrator and used the different pieces of the knot to create patterns. These patterns were applied to a line and the line was made to follow the outline of the bags. Once this was completed, I printed it out and transfered it to the leather. Each side of these bags took about 10 hours to carve.

Dale Chase of Chase Face Media; chess table:

Had to tell ya... I am so pleased with my Celtic Knot font purchase! I had a coffee table I've been aching to finish as a hobby project. Celtic knots have always been fascinating to me, and I really wanted to include a stenciled celtic knot motif into a pseudo antique look.

As a professional llustrator/graphic designer, I really appreciate the difficulty of designing precision patterns that are repeatable or tiled. The woven knot problem really extends the level of complexity for interfacing each repeatable unit. When Google brought up your site, I was extremely impressed with your solution - the Celtic Knot Font. It's a modular system for generating knot patterns! Wow! I knew I'd found my solution. I could focus on the big picture, without getting lost in the geometric, mathematical details. And I could still be creative.

I purchased your font, downloaded it, and had it running without issue, in probably 20 minutes. Using your outline font and your tip sheet, I was able to do what I hoped... visualize in very short order several potential designs on my Mac.

I played with the font for a few evenings to get the hang of it. I still have a lot to learn. But very quickly I had enough capability to be able start my first project. First I visualized several patterns in a text editor at different sizes. I copied those that I liked into Adobe Illustrator software, where I converted them to outlines. Then I experimented with copy-rotation to layout a pattern in a 3-foot diameter circle. Through trial and error, I determined how many pattern copies would be required to populate the diameter, almost touching. Then I modified one pattern slightly by drawing some extensions onto the right and left sides, such that the pattern would properly connect to the adjoining ones. When satisfied with the interfacing, I deleted the rest of the rotated patterns and repeated the copy-rotation with the new altered pattern. With each side now connecting to the adjoining pattern, it looked pretty sweet. I drew a chess board and centered it within the circular design. Then I embellished the chess board by adapting a different knot pattern to one corner, and then copy-rotating to the other 3 corners. Again, I drew connections between them and the design was complete.

I saved my final design to PDF format and took the file down to Kinko’s. They printed out an actual-size B&W copy of my design for less than 10 bucks. Because my purpose was to make a stencil, I spray-glued some frosted Duralar (Mylar) onto the paper copy to give it some dimensional stability and sturdiness. I cut out the design with an Exacto knife. That tedious and "exacting" work took a few evenings. (Later I found out that could have employed a local CNC laser service to cut my templates, right from the vector computer file! Oh well, next time…). I temporarily used both the negative and positive portions of the template together, to center it properly on the table. Then I carefully removed what I didn’t need (negative areas) and applied stain over the remaining stencil sections with an airbrush to create the shadow effect around the knots. I employed a straight piece of Mylar and the airbrush to complete the subtle over/under weave effect. I finished the table off with several coats of tung oil.

I’d be happy to answer any questions from your customers.

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