questions on creating a font, general processing and software used

[Gare]

Hi avil1972—

I've been making typefaces since 1992, using CorelDRAW, which has a font export filter, so there was no need back then for a drawing program and a font editor. Sadly, within the limitations of a forum post, I can't do better than my own set of steps. I hope this provides something:

Take a big pause before you create or finish your set of characters. Draw however many glyphs you want in your typeface, but you’ll want to keep these things in mind as you work:

• You really should have a few “master serifs” on the Guides layer. IOW, if you’re drawing a serif font such as something like Times Roman, your font will look awkward unless the serifs, the endstrokes, are all the same size, the same shape, the same degree of concave-ness (concavity?). You position the guide, mand then draw over it to complete a character. Consider using the Add Shapes command to more easily add the serif to the body of the character.

• Don’t overlap paths. An “X” is the best example of a character that might have an overlap. First, a character is only a single path; combined paths are fine, but not two objects, and not two objects that are combined so that the path segments cross each other. Just don’t do it, or I’ll have to write a book here. And you’ve have to buy it. The best way to make an “X” is to combine two horizontally mirrors slashes using Add Shapes in the Arrange>Combine Shapes menu.

• Be Concise. A character that has 100 control points probably doesn’t need to. Eliminate control points that do nothing for the shape of a character. Example: a period, whether it’s a gothic sans serif, or a serif Roman character probably has only four control points. Only when an extremely ornate typeface is desired would you use more than four points. Every control point adds a byte of character information, a font, for example, that has a 210 node character might not display properly because typefaces are actually little runtime programs, not just a bunch of paths. And programs misbehave and sometimes fail if the data is too complex for a single object.

• Be consistent. If a capital “A” is 550 points tall on the page, the capital “H” should be exactly 550 points tall and have the same baseline—the point at which capital characters and most lowercase characters touch. Q, P. G, J, and Y characters always screw up this explanation (!)



Depending on your host program you use for making the font from outlines, choose that output file type in Xara. Now, if you’re exporting to Illustrator (myfile.ai), you must export a single character on a single page. So as you build up your characters on the same page (suggested), one at a time, copy and then paste a character (a glyph) onto a new page and then export it. Why? Because Adobe’s Illustrator file format is a page descriptor language, and whether or not you have anything additional on a page, it will export it along with your character.
Font Forge is free and although I use an older copy of FontLab, I use FontForge as a last step before using or selling a font. It’s free, it’s open source.

At the risk of being a jerk, the rest of the process is trivial compared to your setup. You paste your glyphs in the corresponding slots you see that are marked A, B, C and so on. Then you let the font creation program compile the font in TTF or (my preference) OTF.

Two more small thoughts, the only kind I have:

1.) On your maiden voyage, consider making a Picture font (a Pi font) rather than a Latin alpha-numeric font, such as most of them on your system. Why? You’ll occasionally need a custom symbol; I have an interrobang in a lot of home-brew typefaces. Also, you don’t have to be God-Awful precise with a picture font; baselines, x-heights, and all the other nitty-gritty stuff you’ll want to learn about.

2.) Consider making all the little punctuation and numbers for your typeface. Swearing out loud is the inevitable result of making a typeface that doesn’t have quote marks, parentheses, a question mark and so on. You will need them, I swear you will need them at some point in your designs. Me? Only when a typefaces is of extraordinary design, a must-have, and I’ll only use it for headlines—will I forgive the author for lack of extended keys.

May the Forced Justification be with you.


Gare