Going quiet for a while because of this little chap’s arrival.
OK, so I started drawing Rodeo as an outline font with further details inside. And that wasn’t too much of a problem as I was only doing a few letters for a competition entry.
But then it started to grow. Now I’ve drawn a full lower case, upper case and small caps. And it’s occurred to me (too late, as usual) that it would have been better to design it as a solid font first. Fewer points to worry about that way when tweaking it. Easier to scale/interpolate glyphs to make better small caps. Easier even to see when curves aren’t quite as smooth as they could be.
And once the solid glyphs were down it would be a very simple process to make an outline version, and a version with the internal stars and stripes. Then I’d have three fonts for the price of one.
I really am learning all this the hard way, aren’t I?
Phew – I think I’ve reached the point now where I’m fairly happy with the glyphs in the font I’ve been making. Happy enough to try a proper sample anyway – I expect to tweak more soon.
Click image to view/download the PDF
As I may have mentioned already, this started out from an entry to a type battle at typophile.com basedon stars-and-stripes fonts. I’m beginning to think though that this font might be better without the stars in the caps. Or perhaps I could make the default caps have no stars but keep the starred versions as stylistic alternates. (Yay for Opentype features!)
I suppose once I’m finally happy with the glyphs it would be quick enough to create a solid version, or another outline version without the stripes.
Anyway, take a look and see what you think. If I’ve done this right then clicking on the image above will let you view/download the PDF sample. Any thought/comments are welcome.
I’ve learnt a few valuable lessons recently – one of which I will share with you now. It’s a fairly basic idea, but I’d managed to overlook it so perhaps you might have done too: draw all your glyphs before you start kerning. And I mean all of them. If you’re going to add extended language support, or small caps, or swashes then it’s best to get them done first. That way they can be included in your kerning classes and everything is just much easier.
As I write a possible exception springs to mind. It may be that if you form your accented characters from composites, you may be OK to kern earlier so long as you don’t decompose the composites until you’re done. Not sure though if this is true – I’ll have to check it out. (Or if anyone is reading and knows, pass the knowledge on in the comments.)
I also discovered quite a lot about the mechanics of Fontlab recently too, and have been putting it to use making much cleaner and more uniform glyphs. Here’s a look at a typeface I’ve started on that I’m calling Rodeo for now. (Is there already a font using that name? Another thing to check.) It’s big, slabby and has stars and stripes in it because it started off as an idea for a type battle at typophile.com.
Caps for Rodeo
There are a few things that jump out immediately as needing attention, but on the whole it’s a lot more controlled that anything I’ve done before. So the next few evening will be spent drawing more glyphs, tweaking them and adding classes for small caps and swashes. I’ve set a standard sidebearing of 30 on each side for now, but I’ll look at that, and at kerning, once I’ve completed my glyph set.
Rodeo
Here’s something worth checking out: not just a free font, but an open-source font. You can download the font for nowt and use it as you wish, which is nice enough, but even better you can also download the Fontlab .vfb file too. Click on the image above or visit http://haikumonkey.net/?p=99 for more info and to grab the goodies.
Snag Hand sample, originally uploaded by frunt.
Here’s a sample of my first font, called Snag Hand. The glyph set is expanding nicely, but there are plenty that will need tidying up. And then there’s metrics, kerning and hinting to look into.
Still, I think it looks good for a first effort.
I’ve been reading here and there on the interwebz about using python in the process of type design. It seems I have a lot to learn. For instance, take this from the Superpolator website:
[Superpolator] does not make the glyphs interpolatable, the masters need to have the right number of contours in the right order, each contour the right number of on-curve points. You know the drill.
Blimey. I don’t know the drill. Not quite. I have an idea, a sort of a feel from playing around in Fontlab.
a fontlab screen capture
Take a look at this screen capture. I think I’ve done a clean job on the glyph c. But I don’t know. I’m fairly confident with this glyph, but what about other ones where it gets less clear cut? This kind of fuzziness will start to let me down before too long. It’s clear to me that I need to read up on using Fontlab properly, including using python for macros, if only I knew where. Anyone have any suggestions?
I haven’t been taking many pictures recently. I’ve been working on creating a font instead, but that’s not quite ready to show you yet. I’ve been thinking though that it would be good to put a few samples up soon so people can see how it’s progressing. Maybe also some videos showing how I go about stuff in Fontlab, as much as for my benefit as for anyone else’s – I’m thinking making the videos would help consolidate it all in my own mind. If someone else gets to learn from it too, though, that would obviously be good.
Well, I never promised regular or frequent updates, did I?
