John Roshell shows you techniques for designing letterforms with pencil and paper, including drawing words and logos instead of alphabets, and setting up guidelines for the ascender, baseline, and x-height. He also identifies a few key letters, whose typographical shapes help define the structure of the rest of the alphabet.
- [Instructor] If you don't have a ready source…of lettering samples to (clears throat)…borrow from your kids, then you will need to draw…them from scratch.…Even if you're comfortable with the vector drawing tools…in illustrator, I encourage you to start with pencil…and paper first.…My hand moves much more freely with a pencil…than the mouse, and I find it's much easier to try ideas…and change my mind with a pencil and eraser…than the undo command.…Sometimes I'll even print out an early version…of the font and sketch right on top of it…to refine my ideas and experiment with variations.…Designing letterforms is both creative and logical,…when you come up with a crazy idea,…see if you can apply it to the other letters…with similar shapes.…
I always design with words, I never draw A through Z.…Alphabet order has little in common with how the letters…will actually combine and interact in the real world.…Plus since that's purely logical thinking,…the results can be kind of stiff…and this is a creative process.…Sketching out words and sentences…
Join professional illustrator John Roshell as he shows how to design an alphabet of letters from scratch using Glyphs, a popular software for type designers. John familiarizes you with the qualities of a successful onscreen font, and explains how to design with pencil and paper—and then import those hand-drawn letters into Glyphs. He also demonstrates how to set up a Glyphs file and trace imported letters manually or with autotracing software, and then refine the letter shapes to maximize their readability and personality. To wrap up, he shows how to finalize and output your design, including how to efficiently create missing letters and numbers to complete your creation.
- Why create your own font?
- Designing with pencil and paper
- Setting up a new Glyphs file
- Tracing letters with the pen tool
- Auto tracing letters with Capture
- Cleaning up letter shapes
- Refining angled and round letters
- Setting spacing and kerning
- Fine-tuning for screen use