Designing Fonts: An Introduction to Professional Type Design

Learn the basics of type design, from sketched letters to finished font, in this uncomplicated but thorough introduction to type design

Type design is often presented in either such detail-obsessed complexity that it is not welcoming to beginners, or it is so simplified with the help of apps and web services that the resulting fonts are virtually useless. This book is different. It will show you how to design professional fonts without having to uncover all of type design’s secrets first.

With easy-to-follow instructions, many examples and professional tips, the book teaches you how to design unique typefaces tailor-made for your own projects or customer orders. Designing Fonts has two parts. Part 1 explains the theoretical, creative and technical basics of type design and font production. Six chapters then cover everything from alphabet to font, showing you how to find and develop typeface ideas, design matching letters, produce fonts and expand them with special functions. Part 2 comprises eight workshops that explore how to design and implement different kinds of typefaces, from decorative interlocking display fonts with alternative letters to well-developed headline fonts with multiple cuts and OpenType features.

Contents List

Introduction • Type Design Basics: What are Fonts?; A Professional Font in 9 Steps • Designing Type: Letterform Anatomy; Tools and Letterforms; Developing Type Ideas; Formal Relationships; Optical Corrections • Creating Fonts: Getting to Know the Software; Analog –> Digital • Producing Fonts: Expanding Fonts; Setting the Side-Bearings; Exporting Fonts • Programming Fonts: OpenType Features; Writing Code; Instructions for OpenType Features • Workshops

About the Author

Chris Campe's Hamburg design studio 'All Things Letters' specializes in typographic ideas and hand-designed typefaces. Chris's work has been widely used by publishers, packagers, websites and retailers. Ulrike Rausch
is a Berlin-based type designer. Since founding her font label 'LiebeFonts' in 2009, her high-quality, handwritten fonts have been used around the world in publications, advertisements and on websites.