9
votes
Has anyone tried making their own font?
I'm attempting to make a font for a little kids book I'm working on and realized I don't know anything about the "theory" of font making. I feel like the choices I'm making aren't adequately reflecting the feeling I'm going for.
Has anyone attempted to make their own font? Are there any guides or materials you suggest looking at? If you're up for it I'd love if you could share it and talk about your process! Looking for a combination of guidance and inspiration!!
Cheers!
the crafsman made a font for his channel ages ago so this might be helpful. Also his channel is amazing so check out his other videos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4edSwS_cIDU
This is freaking awesome!!! I love crafsman, but I had no idea he had done this!
I very much do not have real, studied/professional experience with this, but I did give it a go a while back and made my own font.
I didn't find this resource until I was mostly finished, but it's what I wished I would have had from the start: designwithfontforge.com
The other thing I found useful was taking pictures of various fonts I came across in the real world (primarily not computer fonts) to build up a better palette of ideas.
The only other main advice I'd give from my brief attempt at this, which it sounds like you've already handled, is to have a narrow aim of what you want to use your font for. I didn't realize until I was too far along how different fonts can be when used at different sizes or in different mediums.
Last year I went really far down the type design rabbit hole and started a slab serif typeface. I didn’t finish it and got very very sidetracked, but I am grateful for the experience. I still have ambitions to make a font at some point. I think before I do, I might try working with existing fonts; for example, turning Cooper Hewitt into a variable font or adding some OpenType features.
I never built a proper font, but I did turn my handwriting into a font. It was something my girlfriend wanted too so I built her a tool (it’s free) just in case you want to play around with it:
https://font.watermelonson.com