CentralSigns
New Member
Anyone ever build a font around an existing few letters. How much would a project like this cost. Who does this type of work. There are 10 letters made a couple caps and all small. Any ideas??
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Build a Font
- Thread starter CentralSigns
- Start date
oldgoatroper
Roper of Goats. Old ones.
What do the letters look like?
Do you want an actual TrueType font complete with a high-quality kerning table? Or just a collection of lettershapes that you can assemble for small projects?
Do you want an actual TrueType font complete with a high-quality kerning table? Or just a collection of lettershapes that you can assemble for small projects?
CentralSigns
New Member
Right now I have a few letter shapes. Customer wants to add a few more words and thus letters for those words. Maybe at some point they may want to have a whole font of characters, for different advertising ideas they have.
phototec
New Member
Some times when I create a custom logo, I modify a type face, using Illy, convert to outline, then modify the Bezier nodes, archs, etc.
Here is a tutorial:
http://ilovetypography.com/2007/10/22/so-you-want-to-create-a-font-part-1/
WildWestDesigns
Active Member
Check with SignFonts. He might be able to help you with that.
CentralSigns
New Member
SignosaurusRex
Active Member
Why is it that you think it's not already a font?
Pat Whatley
New Member
Creating the quick version of the font is not that big a deal. You just create all the letterforms and plug them in aligned on the baseline. Fixing all the kerning is where the hard part will come in. For something you're rarely going to use it's much simpler to just make the dirty version and manually kern it. For a chunk letterstyle like that you're really just looking at 10-12 shapes combined in various combinations to create the entire font. You could knock out a quick version in a couple of hours.
This is one I did years ago. I can't for the life of me remember if I drew these letters (similar enough to my hand writing) or copied them from one of the old hand lettered alphabet pages that use to be in Signcraft. I do remember starting it after lunch and having it in the system ready to use before 4:30...not bad for my first time making a font and first time using Corel.
This is one I did years ago. I can't for the life of me remember if I drew these letters (similar enough to my hand writing) or copied them from one of the old hand lettered alphabet pages that use to be in Signcraft. I do remember starting it after lunch and having it in the system ready to use before 4:30...not bad for my first time making a font and first time using Corel.
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CentralSigns
New Member
I can't find it Rex. I would think the guy who designed their logo would have used a existing font, but I am unable to find it. But then again it may have been since the brush days as he was a painter as well. A font Id would help lots, and save the customer from the headache of hiring the graphic designer, one partner is pushing to do. We really don't have the time, to create the font ourselves by node edits on the existing font, we are just too busy or should I say overwhelmed with work right now.
Rodi
New Member
Fontforge, free if you know how to compile on Mac, Windows, Linux, Unix.
Fontmaster (expensive), but they have light versions for free. Not intuitive, but they are good tools
Pat uses Font Creator, if memory serves.
I'm fairly certain you can find a font that would be well suited to your specific needs. I have seen fonts very similar, so they are around.
Creating fonts is not easy. Read up about how to create a font, it is fairly involved.
Rodi
Fontmaster (expensive), but they have light versions for free. Not intuitive, but they are good tools
Pat uses Font Creator, if memory serves.
I'm fairly certain you can find a font that would be well suited to your specific needs. I have seen fonts very similar, so they are around.
Creating fonts is not easy. Read up about how to create a font, it is fairly involved.
Rodi
WildWestDesigns
Active Member
That's what I have used in the past.
CentralSigns
New Member
Thanks for all the help. I did look at the program even downloaded the trial version. Looked cool Rodi. It would be the way to go if I was doing this type of work more than once. For now I will just have to refer the client to a font foundry. I don't have the time nor does the program have the pricing to allow for 1 time use. I just don't think the margins will cover some of my time as well as the program price.
Mosh
New Member
I did this a few times back in the 90's with signlab's font creator. Took WAY longer than it was worth, the kerning was always way off.
There are so many free and cheap fonts out there I can't see where it would be worth the effort for a normal sign shop. At the time I thought I was going to light the vinyl cutting world on fire though!!!
There are so many free and cheap fonts out there I can't see where it would be worth the effort for a normal sign shop. At the time I thought I was going to light the vinyl cutting world on fire though!!!
CentralSigns
New Member
Really not my bag of worms either. I was thinking 2 days min and that was using existing another font letters and modifying them to suit. They are partial to the painted name they have, and want a font created around it for marketing. There are soo many close fonts, and they aren't willing to let the one letter be off.