typeface design/font making

rewch

rewch

Well-known member
i need to make a font from a character set that only exists as a lithograph... have scanned each letter & have them as eps...

all the information i can find seems to point to fontographer... not sure i want to spend $349 for one thing...

does any anyone have any thoughts/shortcuts/advice?
 
D

DJ PIMP

Well-known member
hmm didn't realise fontlab had bought fontographer... i've always found the drawing tools clunky compared to Freehand, and I have no idea if the buyout means you can now get support - macromedia had orphaned it the last time i used it.

i'd try the demo of fontlab's typetool ($99). haven't used it but it should be fine for basic stuff. i have used their transtype app and its sweet.

http://fontlab.com/Font-tools/TypeTool/
 
rewch

rewch

Well-known member
thanks bleep... have played around with the demo but can't seem to import the images... can't tell if it's disabled in demo, i'm an idiot or both... people who design typefaces are clearly enormously heroic
 
N

newliberia

little maw
fontographer

Ill swap a loan of fontographer for lunch in the chequers pub
its Mac os 9 though....
when I was making fonts I think I traced them in freehand and then imported bitmaps.....quite slow progress and never saw it to its conclusion but let me know.
 
D

DJ PIMP

Well-known member
rewch said:
thanks bleep... have played around with the demo but can't seem to import the images... can't tell if it's disabled in demo, i'm an idiot or both... people who design typefaces are clearly enormously heroic
Click to expand...
Last type job I had (a font in two weights) combined with other work I was doing at the time, almost killed me. I was a wizened husk at the end of it. Unpleasant.

I'm sure its easier if you really know what you're doing :)
 
rewch

rewch

Well-known member
that's what i thought... hard graft... but i reckon if you vector the bitmaps first might be a bit easier... will definitely do a lunch/swap... os9 no danger... will report back by phone when i have a spare moment!
 
M

Martin Dust

Techno Zen Master
Vector the bitmaps and layout with a 1cm square at the top and bottom of each character, these squares needs to be in the same place for each character and make sure there's space between it and the type design.

Fontographer autoscales things, which is why you use the 1cm squares to make sure everything scales in at the correct size you want. You can just copy and paste each character in as you go, pm me if you need more help. Oh yeah, the last one I did for FontFont took me 300hrs :eek:
 
rewch

rewch

Well-known member
300 hrs!!!!! thank you for the offer though... think those squares will come in very handy
 
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