Type My Face

o o o o o o o o o o o

o o o o o o o o o o o

o o o o o o o o o o o

o o o o o o o o o o o

o o o o o o o o o o o

o o o o o o o o o o o

o o o o o o o o o M Y

o o o o o o o o o o o * o o o o o o F A C E

o o o o o o o

o o o o o o o o o o o

By Marika Andersen

o o o o o o o o o o o T Y P E

A G M S Y 5

B H N T Z 6

C I O U 1 7

D J P V 2 8

E K Q W 3 9

F L R X 4 0

T Y P E o o o o o o o o o o M Y

F A C E

o o o o o o o o o o o

o o o o o o o o o o o

o o o o o o o o o o o

o o o o o o o o o o o

o o o o o o o o o o o

o o o o o o o o o o o

o o o o o o o o o M Y

o o o o o o o o o o o * o o o o o o F A C E

o o o o o o o

o o o o o o o o o o o

By Marika Andersen

o o o o o o o o o o o T Y P E

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Š 2016 by Blurb Australia All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the copyright owners. Every effort has been made to ensure that credits accurately comply with information supplied.

We apologize for any inaccuracies that may have occurred and will resolve inaccurate or missing information in a subsequent reprinting of the book.

First published in Australia by Š 2006 - 2016 Blurb, a self-publishing and marketing platform. www.au.blurb.com

ISBN: 978-1-59253-709-3 Design: Marika Andersen Typography: Coco, Avenir Paper: Premium Matte Cover illustration: Marika Andersen Art Direction: Marika Andersen Printed in Australia

colophon

Introduction

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I N T RO

9

D UCT I O N

Typography is both an art and a technique. Once created through printed materials (remember Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press?), typography is all about arranging type (letters or characters) in a way that enables learning and recognition.

Good typography comes from paying attention to tiny details as this can make the difference between graphic design work that is just acceptable or really good. There is more to it than just choosing fonts and making copy look good, specially body text.

However, typography is more than just the design of the letters and characters -- it also involves careful arrangement and selection of point size, line length, and spacing both on a single line and throughout an entire page. Once you’re conscious about the fact that typography is used all around you, you’ll start to recognize the differences between typefaces and why they might have been selected. Eventually you’ll become a total typegeek, cathing up on any typography wherever you go and noticing all the details.

This book is an introduction to how to create your own typeface. We’ll go through some tips on how to actually design your font, and the work you’ll have to put in afterwords, if you want to create a well functioning font. We will also give you a few tips on how to marketing your font - there’s a lot of different options on how to promote yourself and your new typeface. Enjoy!

O O O O O O O O O O O O O

O O O O O O O O O O O O O

O O O O O O O O O O O O O

O O O O O O O O O O O O O

O O O O O O O O O O O O O

O O O O O O O O O O O O O

O O O O O O O O O O O O O

O O O O O O O O O O O O O

O O O O O O O O O O O O O

O O O O O O O O O O O O O

O O O O O O O O O O O O O

O O O O O O O O O O O O O

O O O O O O O O O O O O O

O O O O O O O O O O O O O

content

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01

02

03

04

05

06

07

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— Create a font, 12-19

— From Illustrator to FontLab, 30-35

— Marketing your font, 52-57

— Bibliography, 69

— Modifying /customizing a font, 20-29

— Kerning, 36-51

— Inspiration, 58-67

— Aknowledgement, 71

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Ty p e i s a b e a ut i fu l g ro u p of l ette rs, n ot a g ro u p of b e a ut i fu l l ette rs.

"

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creating a font

CREATI NG A FO NT So you’re a brilliant designer, a master calligrapher, and you’ve learned all about serifs, side-bearings, and kerning. Now you want to create your own font.

(What! You haven’t learned all about serifs, side-bearings, and kerning? Well, make sure you read all of the articles you can find before you embark on font creation! You’ll need all of the knowledge you can get if you plan on being successful! And if you’re not a brilliant designer or a master calligrapher, well, don’t worry— you can still create some beautiful fonts with a little hard work, a lot of knowledge, and a little inspiration.)

All the brilliant design, precise calligraphic work, and deep knowledge of kerning won’t mean anything if you can’t translate your work into a computer-friendly format, which is why you’ll need a good piece of font editing software at your disposal. Font editing software comes in a variety of strengths and prices, and works on a variety of platforms. The major players are:

FontLab - is what I use to make my fonts. It is more or less the industry standard, and, as such, isn’t exactly cheap. A 30-day free trial is available, if you want to try before you buy. It’s available for both PC and Mac. I’ve used FontLab Studio pretty extensively, and can vouch for its excellence, and the vibrancy of the user community is excellent.

FontForge - can ostensibly do everything that FontLab can, and it’s free and open-source. That said, installing FontForge is not exactly a simple matter (you’ll need to install Cygwin first). Also, the program is not as well documented as FontLab. FontForge is available for PC, Mac, and Linux. (If you’re a Linux user, FontForge is more or less your only choice.)

DTL FontMaster - For those rolling in cash, this software can do everything FontLab can, and more, but it’s quite expensive. FontMaster comes as seven different modules, which I find altogether cool and intimidating.

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FontCreator - is another choice, more affordable than FontLab. The program works only with TrueType and OpenType fonts—no Type 1 fonts—and is for Windows only. Which is quite unfortunate, for us Mac users.

TypeTool - from FontLab is a more entry-level product along the same lines as FontCreator. The company says that TypeTool is “for students, hobby typographers and creative professionals who occasionally need to create or customize fonts”. PC and Mac. Fontographer - The original king of font editing software, which languished in non-development purgatory for years until FontLab bought the code and recently updated it for the Mac. The last version was really showing its age even in the late 1990s, so I’m hoping that Fontlab did an impressive rewrite for its new version. It’s half the price of FontLab Studio, an affordable choice. Fontographer is available for PC and Mac, though only Mac users get the latest version.

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All of these programs operate on the same principles, differing in specifics, interface, and levels of options and power. So do some research before you buy— download and try some demos, read the rants and debates of other font creators out there, and figure out which font editor works best for you. One path I’ve read about some people taking is to start with TypeTool, see if this whole font-creation thing is something they genuinely love, and then eventually upgrade to FontLab Studio once the limitations of TypeTool become an issue.

Once you have a good font editing program, there are three basic routes to creating a font.

>>

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> >

01

creating a font

m eth o d You’ll need -

Scanner

A good pen

Adobe Photoshop

Good paper

ScanFont

A ruler

Font editing software

Drawing on paper.

Are you artistic? Have cool handwriting? Well, get a good pen, a stack of good paper, and start drawing your alphabet. (Don’t overlook your choice of pen. Is your font going to be something thick and juicy? Try using a Sharpie. Or will it be calligraphic? Break out your calligraphy pen set. Will it be thin and delicate?

Pick a fine-point precision pen for your work.)

Draw big, so there’s plenty of detail to capture, and make sure your characters are all the appropriate height (you might want to add ruled lines in pencil to your paper before you begin). Creating a grid before you begin sketching might be a good idea, this way you get the baseline, x-height, cap-height, descender and ascender right. Study your favourite font closely, I promise you’ll see details you never thought existed.

Don’t forget to draw all of the characters a good font needs! That means punctuation, tildes, accents, parentheses and brackets, and numerals. You’ll also want to include obscure characters like the thorn and eth.

Create a new font in your font editor before you put pen to paper, and look at the standard glyph table it presents you with. There will be characters there you’ve never heard of, but there are typesetters out there who will be expecting to see those characters in your font!

Scan your beautiful work into Photoshop, and then turn your image into a bitmap (black and white—no shades of grey).

Almost there. Open your bitmap image in FontLab’s ScanFont. This nifty little program (which comes bundled as part of the Mac version of FontLab Studio—

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Ascender Cap-height x-height

Baseline

Descender

lucky Mac users!) allows you to take bitmap images and convert them into font glyphs. (Font editing programs work with outlines, which are basically vectors like those used in Illusrator. Scanners and programs like Photoshop work with bitmaps. ScanFont bridges the gap between these two media.) Once this is ac-

complished, you can either save your font in ScanFont, or copy individual glyphs from ScanFont into FontLab Studio. (Hey, nobody said this would be easy!) And once you have all of your glyphs in FontLab, you can begin the long, arduous, fun process of editing your font towards perfection!

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02

+

creating a font

m eth o d You’ll need -

Wacom Tablet Adobe Illustrator Font editing software

Draw it on a tablet.

You can skip many of the above steps by using a Wacom tablet to draw your font glyphs directly into a vector graphics program like Adobe Illustrator. FontLab Studio, for one, supports copying and pasting directly from Illustrator. One cool thing about using Illustrator to draw your alphabet is that you have a wide range of brushes to choose from, so that you can change the style of your entire alphabet with a couple of mouse clicks. One thing I’ve discovered is that, as good as tablet technology has gotten, there’s really no substitute for pen and paper—an alphabet drawn on a tablet will be different from the same alphabet drawn on paper.

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03

*

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m eth o d You’ll need -

Mouse Font editing software The steady hand and patience of a Deity

Draw it in your font editing software.

I’ve created a couple of fonts entirely in FontLab Studio, with just my mouse, a steady hand, and a healthy amount of invoking the Undo command. It can definitely be done, and you’ll potentially be able to generate more precise fonts this way, as opposed to drawing your glyphs outside of your font editor and then importing them. There are, as you might expect, lots of tools in font editing programs that are geared to this process: tools that generate straight lines and perfect curves, and guides that help you align everything with the utmost precision.

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modify/custom

M O DYF I Y NG // C U STO M I Z I NG A FO N T

With the power of Adobe Illustrator, you can modify any font you download to create custom pieces of typographic artwork, your own custom typeface and text logos with a few simple steps.

For this example I’m starting with a font called Avenir Light. To make it easier for yourself you should chose a clean sans serif or serif font, depending on what you want to design for your project. Avenir is a perfect sans serif font with geometric shapes which gives you more modifycation opportunities. Use your typetool in Illustrator and write a word, if your modifying a logo - or the whole alphabet if you are creating a typeface.

With our object still rendering as live text, we can adjust things using the Character panel, such as tracking.

At this point, we want to start editing the letters as if they were drawn with the pen tool or other vector shapes. To have full control of the text’s path information, right click and click ‘Create Outlines’. *Note that once this is done, you will not be able change the text like you could when it was live text so be sure you spelled things correctly. Now that we have outlines, you can see we have full control over the paths. We can now edit, delete, and add anchor points and paths to create some custom additions.

Custom Cu sto m Cu sto m AVENIR LIGHT

Removed parts of font

Added lines/ body to font

MODIFIED FONT

Added weight and soften the edges

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C H A NGI NG T HE SER IFS

baskerville bold

modify/custom

modify/custom

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palantino

modify/custom

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REM OVE T HE SER IFS

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DES IGN YO U R C U STO M SER IFS A N D C UTS

andale mono

modify/custom

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X

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/ / / / / / / / / / /

/ / / / / / / / / / /

/ / / / / / / / / / /

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/ / / / / / / / / / /

/ / / / / / / / / / /

/ / / / / / / / / / /

/ / / / / / / / / / /

/ / / / / / / / / / /

/ / / / / / / / / / /

/ / / / / / / / / / /

/ / / / / / / / / / /

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F RO M I LLUSTRATO R TO FO NTLAB Now that you have designed your beautiful new typeface, the next step is moving your letters into a type editing software. In this example we’re using FontLab. Before we paste our letters into FontLab we must make sure our letters are the right size. Open Adobe Illustrator and create a new document, make sure your units are set to points, and your width and height are set to 1000pt. Which leaves you with a square document.

Type in the letters x (for your x-height), d (for your ascender), p (for your descender), and a capital H (for your cap-height). See our example. The height from the bottom of our descender to the top of our ascender must be 1000pt. Go to the transform pallet and change the type size to 1000pt, and align the text to your doc-

illlustrator-fontlab

WATCH TUTORIAL ONLINE Follow link in bibliography

ument. Click and drag guidelines to create your grid.

Once your grid is set, find a pen and a piece of paper.

Now we have to write down where our guidelines are located from the baseline. Mark all your guidelines and write down your values.

Open Fontlab and create a new document. Now we need to change the information in the document to match our font. Go to file > font info > metrics and dimensions. Make sure your “Fonts UPM size” is set to 1000. Then go to key dimensions. Here’s why we had to write down our guide values from Illustrator, fill out all four sections with the numbers you wrote down.

The reason why we’re doing this is because we need our baseline and all the other guidelines to be in the

illlustrator-fontlab

Cap-height x-height

Baseline

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H xpd

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Ascender

Descender

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same place, so that your font stays within the same grid. Remember to save before going any further.

The next step is moving our letters from Illustrator to FontLab. Go back to your Illustrator document, copy > paste your custom letters in to the grid document we just made. Scale your letters to the guidelines, make sure your letters are placed correctly from the baseline, and aligned to the left side of the document.

Copy > paste your letter again, open Fontlab and choose the right glyph. Double click on the glyph your moving in, a new window with guides will open. Paste your letter into the document. Make sure the right vertical guideline is placed on the right edge of your letter. Easily move the guide with your mouse. Now you can see your letter is placed correctly according to the baseline, x-height, cap-height, ascender and descender in the document. You can now close the window and save your document. Keep doing this until all of your glyphs are moved.

illlustrator-fontlab

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c

x

d

<< This is how your glyphs will appear in FontLab. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s important that you adjust this line to the right edge of your glyph.

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o o o o o o o o o o o

o o o o o o o o o o o

o o o o o o o o o o o

o o o o o o o o o o o

o o o o o o o o o o o

o o o o o o o o o o o

o o o o o o o o o o o

o o o o o o o o o o o

o o o o o o o o o o o

o o o o o o o o o o o

o o o o o o o o o o o

o o o o o o o o o o o

Th e re's a huge gap b etwe e n u s.

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kerning

HAVE YO U EVER LOO KED AT A WO RD O R P H RASE YO U ' RE TYPESETTI NG AN D SO METH I NG J UST LOO KED OFF ABO UT IT?

It might just be a kerning problem. Kerning refers to the amount of space between two letters (or other characters: numbers, punctuation, etc.) and the process of adjusting that space to avoid awkward-­looking gaps between your letters and improve legibility.

Sometimes a fonts default kerning isn’t ideal for certain letter combinations, so you’ll want to manually adjust it so the spacing between all the letters looks consistent. It’s important to note here that kerning is a visual exercise; it’s about the perceived amount of space between letters rather than the actual distance between them. Kerning involves adjusting your typography to look right rather than creating mathematically equal spacing.

Type is a funny thing in that it can be a sort of optical illusion. If you were to typeset a word with exactly

equal spacing between each letter, it wouldn’t actually look evenly spaced. That’s because letters have unique shapes, like puzzle pieces, and need to be fit together in the way that works best for each pair.

Why You Should Add Kerning to Your Design Process?

Kerning may seem like an unnecessary or unimportant detail, but adding it as a quick extra step at the end of your design work-flow can make a big difference in helping typography-­focused projects look polished.

Kerning will be most important for large, highly visible text like typographic logos or headlines.

To get a better understanding of why kerning is a smart move, imagine each letter bounded by a box. You’ve probably seen pictures of old wooden or metal type, used to print books.

kerning

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Although most of us don’t use physical blocks of type anymore, the digital fonts we use work in a similar way.

Each letter is still surrounded by an invisible box, and sometimes those boxes create too much space between letter pairs, so their boundaries need to overlap to create the appearance of even spacing. In the old days of printing presses, typographers would fix this problem by cutting notches in the wooden blocks to help the letters fit closer together in a more visually pleasing way. Now, the process is far less involved and can be done with just a few clicks.

Kerning isn’t that hard once you understand how it works. And although eye-balling the spacing and using your own judgment to determine what looks best is a big part of kerning, there are several tricks you can use to make the process easier...

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“ Type is a fu n ny

th i ng i n th at it ca n be a sort of opti ca l i l lus i on.

”

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kerning

01 // Watch out for certain letter combinations.

The shapes of some letters (particularly ones that have strong slants or extended pieces) can make them hard to Kern. Words typeset in all capital letters tend to need extra attention as well. If we go back to the idea of each letter being surrounded by an invisible box, these problematic letters wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t fill their boxes edge

to edge â&#x20AC;&#x201D; leaving those pesky gaps. Here are some of the troublemakers you should keep an eye on. If a problem letter falls in the middle of a word, make sure to look at how it interacts with other letters on both sides. For instance, the first A in PANCAKE looks fine next to the N, but creates a big gap next to the P.

Slanted letters //

Letter combinations //

A V KW Y

V W+A or

Letters with arms or cross strokes //

L FT

T F+a or

PAN CAKE B REAKFAST Tea cu p

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kerning

02 //

h ea d l i n e The relationship between space and letter shape.

In the previous point, we focused mostly on how pairs of uppercase letters can be problematic, but lowercase letters have their own kerning challenges. That’s because straight-­edged letters and rounded letters look different when paired with each other than when paired with their own kind. Typographer Ilene Strizver recommends approaching kerning in this way: two straight letters need the most space; a straight and a round need slightly less to look equivalent; and two round letters need slightly less than that. It helps to visualize this. Hopefully you can see how the amount of space between letters (indicated by the coloured bars) decreases from left to right. Yet, when viewed on

their own, the letters look evenly spaced. Let’s apply this idea to an actual word. Looking at both sides of each letter, the spacing should be consistent for each of the three types of shape combinations we discussed above. In the word “headline,” straight­-to­-straight edges share consistent spacing (marked in pink), as do straight-­to-­round and round­-to-­round. The kerning result seems to be fairly visually consistent. Although by no means do you have to kern your type this precisely, keeping this concept in mind may help you achieve consistent visual spacing in a word or phrase you’re typesetting, particularly if you’re stumped by a particular letter pairing that isn’t looking right.

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03 // Be aware of point size.

The size you set your font at will influence your kerning.

In other words, letters often appear to interact differently at various point sizes — if you set a headline at 48 pt., kern it, and then later need to change it to 24 pt., your careful kerning work will likely be undone.

For that reason, it’s a good idea to kern after you’ve settled on the size of your type. Or, if you’re working on something like a logo that will appear in print at one size on a business card and at another larger size

on a t-shirt, kern those separately. Keep in mind that any kerning mistakes (or neglecting to kern at all) will be most glaring when you’re working with large, highly visible letters.

As a general rule of thumb, you can get away with tighter kerning at larger sizes, but letters can look closer together at smaller sizes, so looser kerning may be required. (More on this in the next tip.)

Tea cu p

Tea cu p

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kerning

04 //

Err on the side of over­-kerning.

Text that is tightly spaced can be hard to read, especially at small sizes. Another negative side effect of under-­kerning is that letters can be so close that they touch, which sometimes creates a whole other letter (or word!). This witty poster demonstrates that possibility: What happens when the “r” and “n” in “kerning” are

spaced too closely? They become an “m” (and create a new term to add to your typographic glossary): So since readability and legibility should be a top concern for typography in any design, when in doubt, it’s best to kern letters slightly looser to avoid giving viewers eyestrain or any opportunity for misinterpretation.

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05 // Flip it.

Sometimes itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hard to spot where you need to make kerning adjustments, because your brain wants to look at what the letters say. One way to shift your focus is to flip your type upside down â&#x20AC;&#x201D; this helps you zero in on the shapes of the letters and the spaces they create, rather than getting distracted by the word itself.

Tea cu p Tea cu p

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06 //

Save kerning ‘til last.

In terms of your design process, kerning should come last in your typography and spacing-related tasks.

Make sure you’ve finalized your font choices before moving on to kerning, since kerning will look different for every typeface. It’s that final step that can give your design some extra polish and professionalism.

But before you do any kerning, you should devote a little attention to other types of spacing first, as appropriate: tracking and leading.

• Tracking: Also known as letterspacing, this type of spacing contributes to the overall visual “looseness” or “tightness” of your text. Rather than adjusting one pair of letters like kerning, tracking applies consistent spacing to all the letters in a selection of text — you might adjust a single word, a sentence, or whole paragraphs or pages at once. If any tracking is necessary in your design, you’ll want to do that before kerning.

• Leading: This is the vertical space between lines of text. You’ve probably used this setting in word processing programs, where it’s a common feature. Although it’s not likely you’ll need to kern multiple lines of text, it’s still good to be aware of the types of spacing you can use to improve your designs.

As a side note, many programs have a couple different kerning settings to choose from. Aside from manually adjusting kerning (which is always best), you’ll often see “metrics” or “optical” kerning options. Metrics uses the built­-in kerning settings that the typeface designer specified in the font file. Optical discards those settings, re-spacing and re-kerning the type according to an algorithm. Learn more about how these options work and when you might use them here.

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07 //

Know when to kern.

As we’ve mentioned a couple times already, kerning creates the most bang for your buck on big, visible typography like headlines, titles, banners or hero images with text, logos, and the like. Large blocks of copy don’t need kerning (especially manual kerning) because: 1) Any kerning problems won’t be visible at typical body copy sizes like 10, 11, or 12 points. 2) Many fonts, especially high­-quality ones, come with hundreds or

even thousands of “kern pairs” built in. Most of the time, these custom-­kerned pairs will take into account a typeface’s unique letter shapes and construction, and eliminate the need for manual kerning, especially when typesetting paragraphs of text.

Besides, going through a page full of text and kerning letters pair by pair would take hours, and you don’t have time for that. Do take the time to kern, just be strategic about which pieces of typography will benefit the most from the extra attention.

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kerning

08 // Put it into practice.

Kerning is one of those design concepts that you really need to practice yourself — both to understand how it works and to get good at it. Aside from starting to kern type in your own projects, you can try out your kerning skills (and get feedback) with a web game called Kerntype.

The game doesn’t have any instructions, so here’s how it works: You’re given a word to kern; the first and last letters are locked in place, and you’re sup-

posed to move the remaining letters to create the appearance of equal spacing.

After you’re done, click “Compare” and then make sure to select the “Both” option so you can see your kerning work (in white) compared to the recommended solution (in blue). You get a score according to how close you came to the recommendation. Exercises like this one can help you get accustomed to the visual process of kerning.

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09 // For web designers: You can kern, too!

Kerning has generally been considered something that graphic and print designers do for projects where the typography is static. But since the Internet came along, type­- savvy web designers and programmers wanted to kern, too. And now there are tools to help them do that. One is Kerning.js, a script that allows you to manipulate your web typographyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s kerning via CSS.

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GOO D LUCK !

See why kerning is important? We hope so! Kerning mistakes can look unprofessional (and can sometimes be downright embarrassing), but now you have the know-­how to do something about it in your design projects. Watch out, though…once you train your brain to look for bad kerning, you may start to notice it everywhere—on signs and advertisements, product packaging, you name it. (You’ve been warned!)

Check out more articles in the “Typography” and “Font” categories—www.designschool.canva.com.

They have some great resources to help you improve your typography skills, like “20 Typography Mistakes Every Beginner Makes – And How You Can Avoid Them” and “A Beautifully Illustrated Glossary Of Typographic Terms You Should Know.”

kerning

"There’s something

thrilling about working in complete darkness at 5am, like I’m fighting crime… even though all I’m really doing is kerning.

"

Jennifer Daniel, Creative Director

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marketing your font

MARKETI NG YO U R FO NT Now that you have a perfectly kerned typeface, it’s time to show off! First things first, you’ll need to generate your font in FontLab and make a ttf. file. Now you can upload your custom font in your fontbook, and use the font in any program, like InDesign.

When you’re kerning your font in FontLab, you can become a little “blind”, so it’s probably a good idea to test your font. Check if your font is optical right in different sizes and text hierarchies. Don’t freak out if it’s not looking perfect, you can still go back to kerning in FontLab. Just remember to generate your font again when you’re finished.

Marketing the fonts you create is much like marketing anything on the Internet: you

need to create a product that buyers want, you need to create something that is different from anything else on the web, and you need to spread the word about what you have. If you ignore any of these aspects, your creation(s) will be lost amongst the millions of other fonts out there.

Subtle Influence Many ordinary people don’t care about fonts and aren’t even aware of the existence of fonts or the subtle influences the typography can have on their attitudes and perceptions.

Of course, this all changes when they set out to create a website or other project that uses fonts. An incorrect font choice can doom a website or e-book and the correct choice can help ensure its success.

marketing your font

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Some designers seem to think that all they have to do is create any font they can dream up and the buyers will come. Unfortunately, in the computer age it just isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t that simple, and the most successful designers do their homework and research before picking up any tools of their trade.

Type Foundry A type foundry is a company that distributes typefaces. Long ago, foundries were factories turning out wood and metal typesets for printing newspapers and books. Now almost all type is sold as a digital file. Foundries collect and sell typefaces, and some also offer custom type services. Font Bureau and Linotype are two well known online foundries. While these companies will do a great job of spreading your font, they take a hefty chunk of the sales price, and you lose almost all control over where and how itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sold.

Once youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve used that research, in tandem with those impressive creative skills and have finished your all-new typography, you have three choices to market your font: Go to work designing fonts for a type foundry, Sign on with a type reseller who will promote and sell your font for you, Go it alone as a freelancer and market your font yourself.

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Type Reseller Type resellers are companies that contract with graphic designers to market their fonts. They are to typography what publishers are to books. Two of the most popular type resellers are MyFont.com and FontShop.com.

When you sign on with a type reseller, they’ll market your designs and pay you a commission – sometimes up to 50 percent of each sale of your design – and offer you a host of other services that will help you popularize your font design.

One good thing about contracting with a reseller is that they are highly concerned about security. Since the fonts are displayed on their website for potential customers to view, everything is stored behind a thick layer of security. Fonts are stolen as often as other digital files such as music and books, and you can remove some of that worry by selling through a reseller.

marketing your font

Freelance Typographer If you want to market your type designs on the Internet, accept the fact that it will take time and will be a failtry-again-fail process until you have some experience.

There is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow however : There are designers out there making a living from designing and selling type fonts.

What makes a particular font successful? The truth is, no one knows for sure, but a good place to start is to do some research on currently popular styles. The “why” sometimes seems a little hard to pin down – people have different ideas about what a good font is – and sometimes it can hinge on something as simple as the fonts name. Other important considerations include the size of the font set, ability to work with colour (much has been written about the effect of colour on emotions), and the actual ease of use of the typeface itself.

marketing your font

type my face

Make a Video About Your Font A recent and very interesting idea for displaying your font is to create a video showing how it will look in action, in much the same way book “trailers” are being used online to promote books. Sites such as HypeForType can display the video to millions of potential customers, or you can go it alone and submit your video to sites such as YouTube. Most computers come with all the necessary software to create a video, and doing so just might convince someone that your font is exactly what they had in mind.Learning how to market your type designs is a process that takes time and experience, so you’ll get better at it the longer you work at it. It will take just one sale to convince you that both monetary rewards and great satisfaction are waiting to be had. Font design is a business, and just like any other business, it’s all about getting to the final payoff - Getting paid to do something you love.

Sounds awesome right?

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Pay with a twitter and Behancé Use the social media to promote yourself. We’re living in the age of technology, and people get almost all their information through either a computer, phone, or tablet more than once during the day.

Over the last couple of years all the big companies started profitting from social medias. Today we se sponsored articles everywhere - Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, youtube, everywhere.

No one will notice all your hard work, unless you shove it in their faces. Behancé is a really good platform to show off your work. Both designers and clients use that webpage daily searching for projects. Link your font from your portofolio site to a “pay with a tweet“ site.

You’re gonna give away your font for free, but at the same time get some really good promotion, and next thing you know your profile doubled views.

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D O EP I C S H I T. Inspiration is a big part of the design process. The important issue here is that you understand the line between stealing and getting inspired by others design. Just like Pablo Picasso said—”good artists copy, great artists steal”.

We have collected a few fonts for you to get inspired of.

The artwork was found on Behancé, from up and coming typographic font designers, all of them with different experience and education. Pay attention to the beautiful details, and get inspired!

ASG ALT

inspiration

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abcdefghi jklmnopqrs tuvwxyz Visit profile on behancè by Remi Lagast.

PANAMA This beautiful font is designed by a french typography designer, Adrien Coquet. Follow him on BehancĂŠ for more projects.

inspiration

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abcdefghi jklmnopqrs tuvwxyz

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VOGA “

Voga is a condensed modern Didone typeface with three weights; Regular, medium and bold. My aim was to create a very elegant and “sexy” typeface with some unique letterforms based on the principle of contrast - curves vs. strong straight lines - thin hairlines vs. thick stems - ball terminals vs. geometric serifs. These characteristics shape it into a glamorous display font primarily used for titles and large typography settings. Voga was inspired by iconic typefaces such as Bodoni and Didot.

by Charles Daoud, graphic designer from Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

inspiration

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abcdefghi jklmnopqrs tuvwxyz

ASTRO â&#x20AC;&#x153;

Astro is my first modular typeface. The initial forms were inspired by the astronomical world so all the entire project is inspired by it.

â&#x20AC;?

inspiration

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a b c d e fg h i j k l m n o pq rs tu v wxyz

1234567890 Visit profile on behancè by Gloria Flores Lleonart.

bibliography

type my face

Alec Julien “So you want to create a font” October 22, 2007 www.ilovetypography.com

Remi Lagast “Asgalt typeface” June 30, 2014 www.behancé.com

Travis Howell “Modifying fonts” www.creativegrenade.com

Adrien Coquet “Panama typeface” April 23, 2015 www.behancé.com

Philippa Berry Smith “Create a font using Illustrator and FontLab, tutorial 1-2” www.youtube.com

Charles Daoud “Voga typeface” September 9, 2014 www.behancé.com

Janie Kliever “A Beginner’s Guide to Kerning Like a Designer” www.designschool.canva.com

Gloria Flores Lleonart “Astro typeface” November 9, 2015 www.behancé.com

Sonia Mansfield “How to Make Money Marketing Your Font” www.justcreative.com

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aknowledgement

This book is dedicated to all designer friends out there, searching for guides to help them become extraordinary typographic designers. Hopefully â&#x20AC;&#x153;Type my faceâ&#x20AC;&#x153; will inspire your creative souls to create awesome new fonts.

Special thanks to creative bloggers for letting me barrow some of your wise and witty words. And my very talented and inspiring teachers at Griffith Uni, Gold Coast, AU.

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A G M S Y 5

B H N T Z 6

C I O U 1 7

D J P V 2 8

E K Q W 3 9

F L R X 4 0