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Font Creating Software

Hand Lettering topics: Sign Making, Design, Fabrication, Letterheads, Sign Books.

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Rodney Vicik
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Jan 23, 2011 10:55 am

Font Creating Software

Post by Rodney Vicik »

I'm relatively new to the forum, but have been following it for months. Most of my hand lettering is done on yachts. It is a pretty specialized field here in coastal Virginia. I am in the process of creating a font based on a hand lettered style of Roman letter that was once very popular on the yachts from this region. The problem is that the hand lettering gurus, myself included, have gotten lazy and resorted to Americana Extra Bold and Times New Roman Bold to make our pounce patterns or paint masks. Therefore I'm in the process of recreating the hand done style as a font. I am doing the basic structure of the characters in CorelDraw X5 and will then need to export into a font editing program. I know that many of the contributors to this forum have already published several fonts and thought you might advise me on selecting the editing software. I've gleaned that Fontographer was once king, but lost the position to Fontlab. I have several fonts on the drawing board that I would classify as display / headline instead of paragraph fonts. This winter has been difficult economically to survive. I would hate to spend the dollars on Fontlab if a less expensive program would meet my needs, but would be willing to invest the $600-$700 for Fontlab if that is what I really need. I use a PC if that helps at all. I was also wondering about Font Creator (commercial version). It is by far the most affordable of what I consider to be the big three, but is it a decent program?
Thanks!
Jerry Berg
Posts: 369
Joined: Wed May 02, 2007 3:17 pm
Location: pacific northwest

Re: Font Creating Software

Post by Jerry Berg »

Hi Rodney,

If you plan on selling your fonts I would recommend fontlab. There is much more work involved than just drawing up vectored letters though if you plan on selling. It also requires the correct type of points in the correct places and the kerning.

If these fonts are for your personal use then any font software would be sufficient.

Jerry
Russ McMullin
Posts: 58
Joined: Mon Apr 25, 2005 12:57 am
Location: Tooele, UT
Contact:

Re: Font Creating Software

Post by Russ McMullin »

I have Fontlab Studio and I really like it. If you go that direction, get the book, "Learn Fontlab Fast" by Leslie Cabarga. It can really help with the learning curve.

Fontographer has been recently updated so I'm sure it's very capable too.
Rodney Vicik
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Jan 23, 2011 10:55 am

Re: Font Creating Software

Post by Rodney Vicik »

Jerry and Russ, thanks for the fast replies. I recently saw that Leslie Cabarga had written a book on Fontlab. I have read his "Lettering, Font, Bible" numerous times and still refer back to it for inspiration. In it he seemed to still be using Fontographer which was one reason I leaned toward that program. Now it seems he has taken the plunge to learning Fontlab and explaining it to others as he does.

Right now I'm consumed with designing my fonts, reading everything I can about it while at the same time designing and redesigning. To have Fontlab now would be perfect timing. I just hope my enthusiasm for font design doesn't cool off after making the purchase. And I do plan on publishing the fonts instead of keeping them for my own use.

Again thanks!
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