I used Valentine’s Day as an excuse to make laser cut gifts…notebooks, pencil cups, and cards. The cards were a bit of an adventure. The store was out of red posterboard, so I purchased gold, not realizing it was made with foil. The diode laser would not cut it from the front, only engrave off the gold to reveal the silver underneath. It does cut from the back (white), but the cutting was imperfect…good enough for handmade gifts for friends and family, but not good enough for commercial sales.
The font was an interesting discovery. It was made using a vector path with the laser set 18mm above its focus point. I used Argenton Sans Thin, which is free including for commercial use. Looking closely at the font, it is composed of parallel lines.
With the laser out of focus, the two lines blend together creating a single darker line. I primarily make functional things, and I’ve been looking for a way to use a vector path to clearly label things. Stick fonts were just too thin…even when using an out-of-focus laser.
