How To Make a Font? Here’s a Simple Tutorial to Follow

With the ease of access that the internet provides in this day and age, it is easy for you to get various free right fonts for your design projects. Even so, some limitations restrict you from getting them. Regarding this problem, have you ever thought about making your own font?

If the answer to the above question is “Yes, I have”, then this article will take you to some guides on how to make a font. Without further ado, let’s get started!

6 Simple Steps on How To Make a Font

When you plan to make a font, you need software to help make your creative font. But before getting to know the software, there are some introductory steps you have to take. Let’s get to know those steps!

Step 1: Outline a Design Goal

Just like when working on a design project, you must first outline your goals and the exact shape of the font. This also applies when you’re making your font. Therefore, the first step in making a font is to decide what kind of font you want to create.

If you’re still confused when deciding on the shape of your font, then the questions below might help.

• Will your font be specific to one project or multiple projects?
• Does your project require a large or small font?
• Do you want to create a font with Serif or Sans Serif type?

If you’ve got the answers to these questions, you’re one step ahead of finding the ideal font shape that suits your needs. Now, let’s move to the next step.

Step 2: Start Designing Fonts on Paper

Once you’ve found the ideal font shape for your design, you can start creating the font according to your initial plan. Since it can potentially take a lot of time, many professional font tutorials recommend making fonts with pen on paper.

Designing a font on paper will be much easier and faster than doing it on a computer. In addition to saving time, you can be more flexible to tinker with your font design following your wishes.

Below are some tips that you can apply when designing fonts on paper.

• No need to draw all the complete letter characters. You can start with a few letter characters such as “H”, “n”, “o”, and “y”.
• Draw baselines and other important height lines to act as a reference point.
• Refer to other fonts around to spot where shapes are repeated in the sequence of characters.

Also Read: This is How You Can Organize Your Fonts Like Professional Designers

Step 3: Choose and Install Your Ideal Software

After successfully creating an outline of your font design on paper, the next step is to start realizing it on the computer. Of course. You need software to create the realization of your font design. Here we summarize 3 software that can help your font-making process.

a. FontForge

The first software is FontForge, an open-source font editor with a large amount of online navigation to guide you through the design process. You can start from scratch by using the provided tools or uploading a font image as a starting point.

The downside of this font maker software is that its interface is a little user-unfriendly. However, the more you use it, the more you will get used to its interface.

Also Read: Free and Accessible for Beginners and Professionals: FontForge Reviewed

b. BirdFont

Next up is BirdFont, a great choice of software for those of you who want an intuitive interface from a font maker. Using this software will allow you to start creating fonts quickly and easily.

Like FontForge, you can start making a font by scratching using the editor or uploading an image as your starting point. Unlike FontForge, which presents supporting information for easy font creation, Birdfont does not have it. This is the drawback of this font creator software.

c. Glyphr Studio

The last one is Glyphr Studio, an ideal choice for creating fonts via the web rather than desktop-based software. Not only that, but this font creator software is also perfectly equipped with an intuitive display like Birdfont and supporting information like FontForge.

Those are the three font maker software that you can try. However, all three offer similar features; choosing the ideal software depends on each person’s preferences. You can test the three software above to find which one you are most comfortable using.

Step 4: Start Creating Your Font

After you have installed your software, you’re ready to start making your fonts. Based on the software you select, you can start making a font by scratching, uploading your paper font drawing, or even importing a font file to edit. 

Step 5: Fine-Tune Your Character Set

It can be easy to focus only on individual characters during the font-making process. Still, you should consider how the font will look when fine-tuning it. Here are some tips for refining your character set.

• Consider letter spacing and kerning by combining their sets
• Run tests on different sizes for each character, especially if your font is potentially going to be widely used
• Print out your font creation to help you spot subtle errors

Also Read: What Is The Difference Between Kerning Tracking And Leading In Typography?

Step 6: Upload Your Font after Understanding the Process 

At the end of the on how to make your font process. You can export your font design in one of two typical file types, namely .ttf or .otf. After saving your font file, anyone can easily install the font you created on their computer.

Have You Understood the Know-how on How to Make a Font?

Those are six easy steps to make a font that you can follow. With these steps, whatever type of font you need for your design project, you can make it by yourself. Apart from making a font, you can get your font through Creatype Studio, which has plenty of font options from $1. So, let’s make your design fabulous!