In 1984 Susan Kare worked on the first version of Apple’s revolutionary graphical user interface. She began by sketching arrows, buttons, pointing hands, and other visual elements in a notebook. These casual prototypes of the new, user-friendly face of computing were initially drawn with a pen on graph paper, each square representing a pixel.

For long I am fascinated by internet slang and ASCII emoji which unstoppably infiltrated our digital communication. These sequences worked as a short code in several forums and chatrooms. RTFM (yes, Read The Fucking Manual) combines both worlds. Use it to quickly generate custom UI buttons. Instant fun for T-shirts or social media stickers! (Try Sticker Maker.app, it’s free)

RTFM works on macOS plus Windows computers and with a few extra steps (try iFont.app, not free) on your Apple mobile devices as well.

Is RTFM free? Nope. But for just 10 EUR you can add RTFM (+ bonus font RTFM Sticker and an Adobe Illustrator template to generate your first buttons / stickers) to your font collection. Just send an email to: designisfijn@icloud.com.

RTFM will be updated regularly with more iconic, pixelated design elements from the previous century. Stay tuned in and follow me on Insta!

Download a type specimen in PDF format.

Popular Tags: Font / Typography