Making your own fonts

[Pat Whatley]

So...nobody could identify the font I posted last week so I just recreated the 8 letters I needed for the project I was working on. While doing that I started thinking about making fonts with Corel and Fontographer years ago. I made five fonts back then but never finished defining all of the kerning pairs

I did a little research and decided to give it a shot again, this time with a program called High-Logic Font Creator. The differences are NIGHT & DAY! I can design in Illustrator, copy and paste into the program, drag guidelines to define the edges, and PRESTO! It's ready to go.

Just for practice I added serifs to Futura XBlk. The kerning works perfectly and the program is about as simple to use as it could be.

 

[Replicator]

FYI, you can do all your designing and node editing right inside FontCreator and save yourself from doing all the cutting and pasting . . .

Great Program !

 

[SignosaurusRex]

Looks good ....but, may I suggest losing the SERIF on the bottom right of the "U" for a start?

 

[Replicator]

I think the U looks fantastic just the way it is pat . . . !

 

[Pat Whatley]

This is by no means finished. The U, G, and Q really need some work. The leg added to the U was just an experiment, it looked awful plain without it. I've also go the serif extending above the T but not the E & F because I haven't figured out which way I like it. I do know quite a bit about type structure, but again, this is really just a practice set to learn the program but I am going to go ahead and do the full font set as long as I'm doing it.

Rep, I tried doing all the editing directly in the program but there aren't any alignment tools or freehand rotate tools that I can find.

 

[Replicator]

I haven't mastered the program yet either,

but know some that have and they do everything directly in the program,

so I know it can be done.

 

[OldPaint]

not to be a putz.........but the U with the serif.....is also making it a LOWER CASE u.........ALL OTHERS ARE CAPS....

 

[3dsignco]

Looks cool Pat Might have to try that program out.. Dabbled with fontgrapher years ago but like you was a pain in the rear.. Might have to try it out.. I have some fonts I designed in Signlab and had them ready except they could only be used in Signlab.

 

[Rodi]

FontLab Type Tool might be a better low price font creation program. If you really want to go all out, FontLab is all the rave. There are other tools out there, DTL FontMaster utilities are free, but unintuitive and there is the free FontForge, OpenSource. Font Constructor is a Mac only program, but is sort of limited.

Nice work Pat.

 

[The Vector Doctor]

The serif on the U is needed if you have the leg. Otherwise it does not match. If the serif bothers you on th U, then get rid of the leg. I like the U this way, there are actually many fonts that have a U like this

 

[Pat Whatley]

Both versions

 

[signgal]

Great info. I've wondered about this... looked into a bit in the past but ultimately got dragged back to the real world with the day to day grind.

 

[The Vector Doctor]

Do both. Many of the newer fonts have alternate characters

 

[Service Sign Co]

That style looks good Pat, Here is one similar with lower case.

 

[houseofgrafix]

holy junk.. i bet it would be hard to do a whole font..

good job!

 

[Pat Whatley]

That style looks good Pat, Here is one similar with lower case.

What the heck is the name of that font?! That's the font I was looking for when the whole "make your own font" think started.

 

[Service Sign Co]

I don't know what it's called, My Fonts says "consult an expert" which i guess is me so Spurred Gothic should work

 

[Dan Antonelli]

Nice Pat - almost done with that one I was working on. Fun isn't it!

 

[Pat Whatley]

YOU'RE KIDDING ME? You really don't know the name of it? Come on, is that something you made, something you have, something you bought, or something you want to sell? Where did that type sheet come from so I'll know who's gonna sue me when I digitize that sheet this weekend and make my own font called "That damn font I couldn't find"

 

[Mosh]

I used signlab's font creator when I first got it (1992ish) I copied WESTERN gerber font. Never could get the kerning to be right. I do use it once in a great while, but for headlines, not lots of text. At that time I was used to only having 9 fonts on my sprint so I thought I was going to light the world on fire with fonts I created!