The readability of any test is very often determined to a fairly high degree by the font used to write it. Many users do not want to be content with what modern text editors offer , but try to create their own fonts. However, there are many problems in the process, if you do not take into account some important points. Creating your own beautiful font is not as easy as it might seem at first glance. Therefore, we will try to consider some of the nuances associated with this painstaking work.
How to create a beautiful font: task setting
First of all, at the initial stage, the main goals should be clearly defined for yourself. Whether the font will be created for academic publications, for comics or entertainment projects - this largely determines the main stages of work.
Next, you should determine how the created font should look and whether it will fit into the future project (chopped font, serif font, characters with the correct geometry, finally, whether the font will be based on the designer’s own handwriting), how well it will look in long documents , not just the headlines.
Naturally, it should be taken into account how the symbols will be visually perceived when magnified. It is also worth paying attention to the type of font in the whole document. Of course, some simple program can be used to change the font of an existing one, but most experts do not recommend taking other fonts as a basis, because if you want to be original, such tools do not work (except for understanding the basics of editing).
First stage
Creating chopped letters is considered more complicated, so for a start it is better to do handwritten font. The program for creating a font from your handwriting can be used at later stages, and at the very beginning it is recommended to draw a few characters by hand, and then make up some combination of them and see how it will look in general terms.
This approach allows you to immediately assess many shortcomings, because the handwriting can be very specific and purely individual, and not all readers of future texts will be able to read it. Uncomfortable reading can simply push the potential reader away.
In the simplest case, you can even just take photos for letters, and then make words or combinations from them (on a computer or manually from in-kind pictures).
First letters
Computer processing and programs for creating fonts do not need to be implemented immediately. You should start by creating two, as it is believed, the main letters. These are uppercase Latin letters "n" and "o", and capital letters - "O" and "H".
Some experts in this field recommend the use of the combination “adhension” (or “adhencion”). It is believed that the creation of sequences of precisely these characters manually in the early stages of the development of the future font allows you to fully understand the geometry and proportions of each letter, number or symbol.
In the future, this will simplify the task of drawing characters already in a computer program. But initially it’s better to draw them manually, because without certain knowledge on the computer, creating smooth lines or transitions will be quite problematic.
Font software: transferring a font to a computer
But let's say a font is created, and so far no specific program for creating a handwritten font has been used. The next step is to transfer the font to the computer environment. Needless to say, this will require a scanner and related software.
And for these purposes, you can use many applications, but all those who have come across similar software packages, as a rule, recommend using Adobe Illustrator - a program that is universal in every way. It is advisable to first paint over the drawn symbols with a bright marker, and then also draw a border with a pen to smooth the shapes.
But after all, not all beginning designers have practically the skills to work with this application, since the program for beginners is considered quite difficult to master. Therefore, a high-quality, although not a new application called FontLab Studio is perfect.
Despite its some obsolescence, the application has quite a lot of professional-grade modules in its arsenal, including Bizet's drawing tools, glyph viewers in two-dimensional space, and not just in horizontal planes, various automatic converters and font merging tools. In addition, this software product supports most of the well-known font formats (TrueType, ASCII Unix, Open TrueType, Mac TrueType), as well as designs created using the same Adobe Illustrator in BMP, AI, TIFF, EPS, etc.
If you don’t feel like drawing yourself ...
In such a situation, the BirdFont utility is a great option for the user - a small program for creating your own font, as they say, from scratch.
Despite its simplicity, the application has an excellent toolkit where you can separately note drawing letters or characters with reference to a geometric grid, creating glyphs on top of existing images, automatically converting characters to vector form, advanced font import capabilities and adding metadata.
If you want to make a project based on your own handwriting, you can resort to the help of the FontCreator application. The program is quite easy to learn and has good capabilities not only for creating, but also for testing fonts, even with binding to a standard PCI keyboard with different layouts.
Font testing
Finally, the font is created and processed for future use. In the next step, you should first pay attention to how the characters will look in one word, line, paragraph or in the full text in terms of its readability.
In addition, it is worth trying to resize the text and evaluate how well it looks in different scaling options. Almost all font programs have these features, but it's better to just print the text and see for yourself. A sheet of printed text in different sizes can be hung on the wall and looked at it from afar or near to analyze the flaws. It is also advisable to send some text to acquaintances or friends so that they can appreciate the work, because the author, as a rule, has only his own, purely personal opinion and perception of what has been done.
Which programs are better to use?
Now it remains to look at the most popular programs for creating fonts, which are mostly used by professional designers and ordinary users. Among all the variety that is currently offered on the computer technology market, the following software products should be separately noted:
- FontLab Studio;
- FontCreator;
- BirdFont;
- Fontographer;
- FontForge;
- Type 3.2 font editor;
- FontStruct;
- BitFontMaker2;
- Fontifier
- YourFonts;
- Glyphr;
- iFontMaker;
- FontArk;
- MyScriptFont etc.
In this list you can find programs for creating fonts in Russian, free and paid utilities. Yes, and according to their capabilities they differ quite significantly. So you have to choose, based on your own considerations, needs or testing applications in work.
Instead of a total
As can be understood from the foregoing, the process of creating your own font on the one hand looks quite simple (when using programs), and on the other hand, it requires a manifestation of imagination and perseverance. Here, emphasis was specifically placed on developing your own font, rather than processing an existing one, since the creative approach by the designer always looks more interesting than copying something that already existed. I would like to hope that these simple tips will help all beginners to understand all the stages in the development of their projects. Well, programs for creating fonts - this is the second thing. The main thing is the original idea of the creator himself, so to speak, a creative approach to solving the problem. And this, as you know, is welcomed in the first place.