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Creating types : getting started.
Before we see how to build a face and a font, there are some few things you should know and keep in mind during the whole process. Of course, just like all the advices explained in this section, these are definitely not laws, but merely general hints that proved usefull for various font makers.
Let's go.
First of all, typography is a school of modesty. Don't let yourself be confused by famous folks, or by how easy it seems to create a font using such powerfull softs like Fontographer of FontLab. It is a real hard work to create typographies, and it takes a long time.
It is most of all a sculpture work : once you've created the general shapes of the letters, you'll need to spend a lot of time refining them, so that it not only expresses exactly what you wanted, but also remain legible and usable. The good side of this is that the improvement period is also the best way to learn more about typography : compare your face with classic ones you like or that inspires you, play with them, and open them using your font making soft to see how the guys did whatever is blocking you.
YOUR TOOLS ARE YOUR ENEMIES
Getting yourself free from the tools is essential. Modern typography is in may ways similar to modern music : samplers and sequencers are making it easy to create something that sounds like music, but it takes time to create something original, and to know enough the softs so you can do what you have in mind, not what's easy to do with them. That's exactly the same with autotrace utilities and font making softs.
A good example of that is the multiplication of hyper-regular typefaces, with letter built using a very strict grid. This is due to the fact that using softwares allows you to simply cut and paste shapes from E to F, V to W and so on. This is time-saving, but it gives to every typefaces that rigid (techno?) look, even to scripts!
And just like in music, the autotrace tools are a real danger: sampling a rough drawing or a xerox-trashed font will just produce one more trash font!
TIME IS YOUR BEST FRIEND
Taking your time means giving things time to get better, and, that's the most important point, more personnal!
Of course, you can make a font in a week-end as long as you don't like sleeping. In fact it depens on the kind of idea you have (very simple idea can also be very effective), and on your level of knowledge. But anyway, you'll have then to improve it (homogeneity, spacing, kerning pairs, bitmaps), and it takes time to inoculate some personnality in a 256 charset! Creating types is really an obsessive work.
And remember: Instant-font (also known as Fun fonts) are passing quick (just like one-hit-wonders in music). They are funny, useful for you at that very moment, but not for others, as they have one single and precise meaning. Type is also a school of modesty because you don't make it for you ; you make it for that other people can use it in their own personnal way.
HAVING A CLEAR GOAL IN MIND
This said, here comes the reccurent question we're asked: Where do people are getting their inspiration?
The answer is simple: anywhere! There is no creative rules about making type, and every talented author creates its own way of finding them. The only advice is to have one single objective. Why just one? Simply because people scarcely succeeds in saying several different things at the time. After all we only have one mouth to talk...
But this does not means this must be something simple! Just like in other forms of art, the idea can either be very conceptual or more nebulous, like the need to depict a particular feeling. As people are getting more and more skilled in typography, they tends to create faces expressing more complex ideas, or more unspokable ones: moods, ambiances, feelings, etc..
FIRST SKETCHES
Once you have your idea in mind, start making some sketches to make it concrete, and see if it can work for several letters. Most of us are having small notebooks where they quickly write ideas or drawings before forgetting them! At this time, the face may looks like this :
Or that:
You now have to make some few decisions that will interfers with the whole creation process: will this be text or display face? This is very important, because most display face idea simply don't allows you to design lowercases! And may be the will to make a text face will compel you to refine the idea so that it should work for body texts.
Another decision is becoming more and more important nowadays : will this be a classic face or a screen face? If a face has to be used either on print or on screen, it has to be highly readable at small pointsizes and with low resolution outputs (most screen have 72 point per inch). In two word, it must degrade well. (We'll have soon a text about this emerging matter in he Handbook)
Now, let's see how to turn your sketches into a type set.
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