STAGE 0: Getting started with font design

Designing a high-quality typeface and developing a font that works across platfroms take time, effort and expertise in;

  1. Context: understanding the script and the language and their typographic conventions and traditions.

  2. Drawing: Understanding the drawing techniques specific to typeface design and developing skills.

  3. Technology: Understanding technology related to production and usage of digital font software. An understanding of pre-digital era type making and typesetting technologies helps a lot.

However making a working font file is easy with modern font editor software. This document presents some online resources related to 2 and 3.

Drawing bezier curves

The bezier curve tools and vector editing tools like Inkscape or Adobe Illustrator are not fit for the job of drawing Fonts, which have many different characters. Font editors are software programmes specifically designed and developed for drawing fonts and producing font files. It is strongly recommended to stick to font editor program in drawing. This section has some links on best practices in drawing.

Bezier Curves and Type Design: A Tutorial by Fábio Duarte Martins

So What's the Big Deal with Horizontal & Vertical Bezier Handles Anyway?

Hand Lettering: How to Vector Your Letterforms by Scott Biersack

A Primer on Bézier Curves: Math behind the curves

type basics 100% practical

The Bézier Game by Marc MacKay

More tutorials

On Making fonts

Design with Fontforge

Tutorial by Thomas Jokin

Font editor software

Fontforge

On typography

Type vs Lettering

Lettering, calligraphy and typography

What's The Difference Between A Font And A Typeface?

ADVANCED READING

https://opentypecookbook.com/

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