So…I’m looking to make a stencil of the characters for Garamon (ガラモン) for a nameplate I’m designing, to go on the custom riser base I had made for my Gara-Detolf, and I was wondering if anyone knew of a free (or relatively inexpensive) site or sites where I could try these characters out in a variety of fonts/sizes, and then save what I like as a .pdf or at least print it down from the site.

Any help would be appreciated- thanks!

no idea about websites.. but i would try your local neighborhood tattoo parlor

That is a great suggestion, hms...problem is, the one and only area tattoo parlor is weeeaaak....I highly doubt that they have flash of full kanji alphabets in a variety of fonts. But....maybe.....I'll give 'em a call...

you can probably do a search for free kanji fonts - you'll have to look through them to find your's but it's worth a shot. pop them into photoshop or something to print them... even word would do

^^ Ditto that.

Here are some sites for free kana fonts that I found that you could play with in Word (you want 'kana', not 'kanji').

http://www.wazu.jp/gallery/Fonts_Japanese.html
http://babel.uoregon.edu/yamada/fonts/japanese.html

Also, I found some interesting blog posts on Japanese typography and how different type styles are used for different purposes.

Japanese font styles #1
Japanese font styles #2
Japanese font styles #3
Fun with Japanese characters

Just to expand on what L said, those characters you have are katakana. Hope that helps in your search.

Thanks, all- great leads, el- I think I've got something in mind that will work!

if you are using a microsoft operating system.

install the IME(input method editor) for japanese fonts.

http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/hand ... Paper.mspx

its free. you can then choose katakana, hiragana, or it will create the kanji from the hiragana inputs you make.

it might help you out.