Create your own font. How to create your own font for word? How to create a beautiful font: problem statement

Are you tired of the daily monotony of using regular fonts? Or maybe you have any creative ideas for your own font and its style? If yes, then we want to tell you that since you are confident and creative enough, it’s time to start visiting free sites where you can bring all your font-related ideas to life. Yes, that's right, there are plenty of resources online for graphic designers where you can design and design your own fonts. In the future, you can use them in your own projects or share them with others. It's worth noting that there is a huge demand for new and exciting types of fonts right now. Believe me, the graphic world simply needs talented font developers, and if you are good at it, then you can also earn extra money from it.

We offer you a list of 10 free resources with tools to help you get creative and create new creative fonts.

Bird Font is an online tool for creating and editing vector graphics. The service offers import and export settings for True Type Font (TTF), Embedded OpenType Font (EOF) and Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG). On the site you can explore many possibilities and tools for creating various vector images. The most popular among them are curve orientation, contextual linking substitution, kerning, object rotation, background change and much more.

The site is designed specifically for creating fonts and offers an effective platform for their design. The resource will be useful for enthusiasts who like to experiment with fonts and create new types. With FontStruct, you can create fonts using various geometric shapes, such as tiles or brick mesh. In addition, here you can find ready-made new types of fonts. Fonts created with FontStruct are called FontStructions and can be installed or loaded into a True Type Font (.ttp) file. They can also be used in Photoshop, Mac/Windows applications or on websites and blogs. This is a site that is really worth checking out.

Glyphr Studio is a font design and editing program and tool that offers many interesting features. On Glyphr Studio, you can create your own character ligatures and glyphs using various vector editing tools such as pen and pointer. One of its signature benefits of the service is the import of SVG code from Inkscape and Illustrator. The tool offers dual screen mode for easy designing and editing. Among other things, Glyphr Studio supports font files such as True Type Font (TTF), Embedded OpenType Font (EOF), and Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) font files.

The site is a browser-based tool for designing and editing bitmap fonts. The service allows you to download or upload fonts to their gallery in a True Type Font file.

MyScriptFont is a great online tool for creating vector fonts based on your own handwriting. All you need to do is download the template in PDF or PNG format and then print it. Next, write the text in it by hand, scan it and upload it to the website (the program supports JPG, PNG, PDF and other formats). You can also use Paint to write text. Unlike other similar tools, MyScriptFont allows you to view and download your handwritten font in Open Type and True Type formats for free. Handwritten fonts can be used in graphics programs, greeting cards, logos, personal letters and more.

FontForge is an online platform for creating free fonts. It has an easy to use user interface and a built-in program for comparing different fonts. With FontForge, you can create and edit fonts in a variety of formats, including PostScript, SVG, True Type, Open Type and more. Also, at your service is the full text of the textbook, which helps in professional training in creating fonts.

FontArk is what every font designer is looking for. Access to the service is only free for a limited time, but it is actually worth taking advantage of. FontArk is a browser-based program and generation of font tools with a built-in fluid grid system. FontArk's design and editing tools are what sets the site apart from its contemporaries. It offers users in real time, several glyphs, tools for editing characters and designing fonts, as well as logos. Moreover, it offers many other features and supports multiple languages.

PaintFont.com is another great tool for converting handwritten text into vector fonts. The site has an extensive set of ready-made characters classified into categories such as ligatures, math and punctuation. The tool offers glyphs and symbols from various languages: Japanese, German, Turkish, Hebrew, Spanish and others.

You can create fonts or upload and modify your own using the custom tools on Fontastic. The service offers several features such as adding or changing colors, adding shadows, changing zoom, and syncing across multiple devices. The site also contains a huge collection of vector icons that can be used for implementation in any of your design projects. They are sorted into several categories for complete convenience.

This service can be called an ideal place for professional font designers and just amateurs. The service has more than 20 parameters that allow you to experiment with built-in glyphs. Also here you will find several editing and design functions, which will be expanded in the future.

A few more resources you might find useful:

FontPunk.com is a free online tool for adding styles and visual effects to create a visually appealing font for an advertisement, flyer or website.

FontConverter.org– free online font file converter.

Font Squirrel is a free online resource with a collection of web fonts that are licensed for commercial use.

Conclusion

Now you know that designing your own fonts is very easy if you have the right resources. For do-it-yourselfers and hobbyists, these resources are useful for learning practical skills such as kerning, adjusting curves, learning structural variations, and glyph packaging.

Design is a vast ocean, growing every day. New types of fonts are created every day or by making custom changes to existing fonts. Fonts enhance the visual appeal of textual content and that is why designers are constantly looking for new font styles to make their work as fresh and innovative as possible.

Much has been written about type design, especially about the history of its creation. We have read about many techniques for creating fonts. But where, exactly, should we start? If you are a designer or illustrator and this discipline is new to you, then where should you start?

We found useful information that we collected from many sources and decided to put it all together.

1. Start with a brief

Creating a font is a long and painstaking job, so it is very important to have a clear understanding of what this font should be.

Developing a brief will certainly require research and thought. How will your font be used: will it be needed for a specific project or for personal use? Is there a problem that your font would solve? Will your font fit into an array of similar designs? What makes it unique?

There are many options. Fonts can be created, for example, specifically for academic texts or for posters. Only when you know how your font can be used, then you are ready to start designing.

2. Fundamental choice

There are a number of decisions to keep in mind. Will it be a sans serif or sans serif? Will it be handwritten text based or more geometric? Will the font be designed for text and suitable for long documents? Or maybe it will display text in a creative style and look better in a larger size?

Clue: It is assumed that the design of sans serif fonts is more difficult for beginners, since the capabilities of such fonts are more specific.

3. Pitfalls in the early stages

There are several pitfalls:

  • You may decide to start by computerizing handwriting, which can be a useful practice exercise. But because handwriting is so individual, your font may not have much success due to its specificity.
  • You should not use existing fonts as a basis. By slightly reworking a font that is already familiar to everyone, you will not create a better font and will not develop your skills.

4. Use your hands

There is a lot of material on how to draw fonts using computer programs, but we strongly recommend that you draw it by hand first. Trying to do this on a computer will make your job much more difficult.

Try to create beautiful shapes of the first few letters on paper, and only then start computer work. Subsequent letters can then be designed based on the existing shapes, according to key features.

Clue: By hand you can usually draw smoother, more precise curves. To make it more convenient, do not be afraid to rotate the sheet of paper the way you need.

5. What characters to start with

Creating specific characters first can help you set the style of your font. Well, then these symbols will be used as guides. Typically, the “control characters,” as they are called, in Latin are n and o, and capital letters are H and O. The word adhension is often used to help test the basic proportions of the font (but some write this word as adhencion because the letter s can be very insidious).

6. Transfer the font to your computer

There are many ways to transfer a drawing to a computer. Some recommend tracing programs, but many prefer to do this work manually so they have full control over the points and shapes.

Many programs need a clear and vibrant design, so once you like your font, trace it with a fine pen and fill in the shapes with a marker.

Clue: If you processed the drawn font as described above, then you can simply take a photo of the drawing and work with it.

7. Program selection

Many designers like to use Adobe Illustrator. It's great for drawing individual shapes and experimenting. But later it becomes obvious that it is not suitable for creating fonts. You will want to work with a program that allows you to work with letter spacing and word creation.

An excellent program is FontLab Studio, but new software such as Glyphs and Robofont are gaining more and more popularity. These programs aren't cheap, but Glyghs has a "mini" version in the Mac App Store with some missing features, which isn't great because those features are important for beginners.

8. Using programs

Don't forget to position the extreme points of the letter shapes (top, bottom, right, left) to better control the process.

9. Words

When you have finished all the work on smoothing out the shapes, look at how it looks in full text. Make it a goal to analyze how the font looks in a line, paragraph, and so on. And don't wait until you've done the entire alphabet.

One of the most popular font design programs. Available on Windows and Mac.

The program is available on Windows, has an intuitive interface and is perfect for beginners.

Another powerful font editor from FontLab that allows you to create new fonts or modify existing ones. Available on Windows and Mac.

This program works on Windows, Mac, Unix/Linux and has been translated into many languages. It also allows you to create new fonts and edit existing ones.

OpenType font editor, available on Windows and Mac OS X. Quite simple and contains a sufficient number of functions.

Another free tool with which you can create dot fonts.

A free trial ($9 per font download) online tool that lets you create fonts from handwritten text.

Another online tool (also almost $10 to download) that lets you create a font from handwritten text.

A free and fairly powerful font editor. Great for beginners and those who don't want to spend money on buying software.

This app is available on iPad and Windows 8. It allows you to create a font from a sketch and edit existing fonts.

Free tool for a limited time. With it you can create fonts and download them.

A free online tool that allows you to create TTF and OTF fonts from handwritten text.

There is a free and premium version. The program runs on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and BSD.

Create your own font

Hi guys. As promised, I’m telling you how to make your own font.
I’ll say right away that I’m not giving a link to download the program here, but it won’t be difficult for you to find it yourself. The program is called High-Logic Font Creator, I started with it, and it is the simplest way to turn the letters you draw into a real font. If you notice any errors, please write, because all this was done almost intuitively, and I do not at all pretend to be a masterful execution :) And as usual, clicking on it will open larger images.
Friends who deal with fonts professionally, don’t swear, there will be practically no terms or rules here. The post is intended for those who have always wanted to create something like this, but did not know how to approach :)

So, the first thing we need to do is draw letters, numbers, symbols, that is, everything you need. I drew this set for stock, today I will turn it into a font. There are no small lowercase letters, so draw those too to make the font full.

I draw everything in Illustrator, but it's up to you. Many people simply write on paper and scan, that’s also an option.
Next you need to save each letter separately. That's it, now open the program.
Our first action is quite obvious: File - New... We see the window:

In the window, enter the name of our font in the Font family name field, select Unicode, Regular, Don't include outlines. These are my settings :)
Click OK, we see that a font template has opened with all possible letters, numbers and other symbols.

I don’t remember what the default font is, I have the Arial font template set. To change the font, add letters, you need to go to Insert - Characters, it's in the top panel. You can also add Cyrillic there, but we won’t do that for now.
Next, the most important thing is to add our letters. Find the capital letter A and double-click on it.
We see a window with a bunch of cells and stripes.

We panic, minimize the program, take a deep breath, and go back. Now Dina will explain everything.
Each strip has its own purpose, but first things first. In this window, right-click anywhere and click Import Image.
We remember where we saved all our letters, find our A, open it. Another window:

There is nothing complicated here, move the slider, click on everything you see, the preview will tell you which settings are best to set. The picture shows mine, you can try the same. Click Generate. Here is our letter:

So, what we see: two vertical stripes and five horizontal ones.
The letter should be located between two vertical stripes, they indicate the distance before and after the letter. Don't place them too close or directly on the letter, otherwise it will be a mess.

And now about horizontal lines. I won’t burden you with terms, I’ll explain it popularly:
1. The topmost bar is the maximum distance above the baseline (4).
2. Second from the top is the height of capital letters.
3. The third is the height of lowercase letters.
4. The base line along which all letters are lined up.
5. Maximum distance below the baseline (4).

To change the parameters of horizontal lines, you need to open Settings in the Format tab. I recommend Googling the parameters of some popular fonts and using them as an example if you want to change something. But I didn't do anything like that :)

As you can see, I increased the letter to line 2, CapHeight, all that remains is to adjust the vertical stripes. I want there to be a decent distance before and after the letter, so I move the letter itself away from the left line, and take the right one by the black triangle on top and move it closer to the letter. Like this:

This is exactly what I will do with all my capital letters. If you are adding lowercase letters, make them height up to line number 3.
When we have positioned the letter, we simply close this window. All letters will fall into place, and this is noticeable:

I have a letter Q with a tail, I don’t want it to stand out from the general row of letters, so I place it on the baseline and leave the tail below.
Do the same with all lowercase letters (p, q, y, g, j), and some, on the contrary, may be slightly higher than the capital letter (d, b, k, f).

I don’t need numbers yet, so my picture looks like this:

If you can’t wait to try the letters in action, then go to File - Save as, save the font in the .ttf format suggested by the program.
We install the font, go to the text editor, find our font, check it. Works!

Well, now you can indulge. We take the worst photo of the May 9 fireworks, do some magic in Photoshop, type in the text, and voila! :)

Not that hard, right? Be sure to try it and show us the results :)

If you are at least a little involved in design, then you know that fonts play a key role and give your project originality and uniqueness.

You can find thousands of different fonts on the Internet, but it is this diversity that makes our choice so painful... If you, like me, want something “that”, then create your own font. In this lesson we will clearly look at creating a ttf font using Fontographer.

Fontographer is an easy-to-learn but very powerful editor that allows you to create new and edit existing fonts.

So! We will create a new font from an image that I found on the Internet. I desperately needed the font Nandos Bold, which is used in the interior design of the Portuguese restaurant chain Nandos.

But since this font was developed directly for a restaurant, I couldn’t find it on the Internet. But I found a picture with the alphabet of this font, which was drawn by children from South Africa. Thanks to them for this! Here .

STEP 1 - Open the image of our font in any graphics editor (I use Photoshop, but this is not so important). Select the capital letter “A” and copy it to the clipboard. We will need the letter A later to study kerning.

STEP 2 - Launch Fontographer and create a new font(Command + N). In the window that opens, double-click on the cell with the letter A, which will result in window for creating an outline (outline) letters.


STEP 3 - Paste the image you copied earlier. The program will automatically place it on the layer Template and the letter will appear pale gray on the screen.

Selecting a layer Template, move the letter to the bottom baseline. Here you can do basic editing (scale, tilt, mirror, etc.).


STEP 4 - Select the Outline layer(it is important!!!). Now we need to outline our letter. This can be done manually or automatically using the command Auto-trace.

In our example, accuracy is not so important, so we select from the menu Element team Auto-trace... In the window that opens, you can play with the detail settings (to the right is a more detailed outline, to the left is a smoother outline).


STEP 5 - Open the Metrics window by pressing Command + K or selecting a command from the menu Window. The new window will contain the letter whose outline we just created.

By dragging the two guides on the sides of the letter, set the distance to adjacent characters (before and after).


STEP 6 - Repeat steps with 3 By 5 , but now for the letter V(letter V we need to study kerning).

STEP 7 - Once you have created the letter V, enter consecutive characters AV in field Text top of the window Metrics. Both letters will be displayed in the window, each with its own indentations.

In fact the letters A And V should be closer to each other (when compared with H and K, V, etc.), otherwise when used it will seem that the distance between them is indecently large.

Adjusting this distance is called kerning. Click on the letter V and drag the guide L closer to the letter A.


STEP 8 - Enter letter combination V.A. to the text line of the window Metrics. Drag a guide L letters A closer to the symbol V. Every time you enter text in the window Metrics, Fontographer stores the kerning pair for these characters in the font memory.

To make your font look more professional, try to create as many kerning pairs as possible for different characters. There is no specific set of kerning pairs, because... it all depends on your font design.

The only thing I will give is a short list of characters that require kerning adjustment: 4, 6, 7, 9, A, C, D, F, G, J, K, L, P, T, U, V, W, Y and most lowercase characters .

STEP 9 - After saving the font (Command + S), you still won't get TTF font. The program will just record all your actions in a file with its own internal format.


STEP 1 -0 Before we save our work in a TTF file, we need to give our font a name. To do this, go to the menu Element > Font Info… Fill in the fields for the font name, developer company, and designer. You can leave the encoding MacOS Roman.

Well, now feel free to go to the menu File and choose Generate Font Files… Check in what format Fontographer suggests saving the font (must be ttf), specify the folder to save and click the button Generate.

That's all! Of course, creating your own font is not fun, but it's worth it.

There are hundreds of different fonts freely available on the Internet, including exotic and handwritten ones, but even such an abundance of them will be completely useless if you need a font that imitates your own handwriting. The reasons why such simulation may be needed may vary, but it is not so much a matter of reasons, but how to implement it.

It turns out that it is very simple. To do this you need a program High-Logic FontCreator and a little perseverance and patience.

Before moving on to the description of the process, let me say a few words about the process itself. . This program is intended for creating and editing fonts. With it, you can update existing and add new symbols, correct their markup, view and install fonts, fix incorrectly displayed fonts, and convert images to text.

Some useful information

So, install and run the program. Next, in the main menu, select File -> Open -> Font File and open any Cyrillic font, copied in advance to a folder convenient for you. FontCreator will parse and display its contents in an internal window, each cell of which will contain a specific character.

If you double-click on such a cell, the program will open the symbol in a small window with a grid layout with guides.

By grabbing the markers with the mouse, you can change the font size, its height and width, the angle of inclination, as well as the shape of the contours themselves.

As for the guides. There are seven of them in FontCreator: WinDescent, BaseLine, x-Height, CapHeight, WinAscent and two more vertical ones without a name.

BaseLine- reference reference line on which "costs" font.
CapHeight- determines the height of capital letters.
X-Height- determines the height of lowercase letters. The exception is lowercase letters of handwritten fonts, which have at the top "tail". The height of such symbols is determined by the line CapHeight.
Lines WinDescent And WinAscent serve to limit characters that have additional elements, for example, a dash in the short “I” or a tail in “Ш” or “р”.
Unnamed vertical lines determine the width of the character. It is different for each symbol.

We may not even suspect it, but all these lines are taken into account by text editors, thanks to which the letters in the text do not overlap each other, are not located one above the other, but stand straight, like drilled soldiers on a parade.

Create your own handwritten font

Take a regular sheet of white A4 paper and write on it in a row all the letters (lowercase and uppercase), as well as all the symbols that you intend to use when printing. It is best to write with a black gel pen so that the characters on the sheet are clear and stand out well. Next, scan the sheet into an image format JPEG or PNG. If you have a device that supports stylus handwriting, use it.

Select the symbol in the image and copy the area to the clipboard. Next, go to FontCreator, find the same symbol in the table of cells, double-click it in the editor, select it and press the Delete button, and in its place paste our selected area of ​​the image (in the menu Edit -> Paste) .

The program recognizes the picture and converts it into an editable outline. Now all that remains is to scale the outline so that its top coincides with the line x-Height, if it is a lowercase letter and with CapHeight, if it is a capital letter. Snap to line BaseLine is done automatically. "Tails" letters "R", "y", "V", "b" tie to WinDescent or WinAscent respectively.

To avoid any overlaps and ensure that the handwritten font you created looks natural, drag the right vertical guide to the far right point of the scaled symbol.