What is Reddit's opinion of Glyphs?

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The i's are only missing when they're part of a "fi" ligature. If the font you're using allows it, compare "fi" (two characters) with "fi" (one character). Same thing with "ff" vs. "ff".

My guess is that some software automatically replaced the two-character strings with the corresponding ligature, but the text then went through some other software that is unaware of those (a lot of software still expects ASCII only) and just replaced them with spaces.

That doesn't really explain the missing t and lone f characters, though. Maybe they're using alternate glyphs for those characters.

Most font creation tools will require you to have each individual character saved as an SVG file out of Illustrator.

There are a number of free online tools that I have used, my favorite free option is called Glyphr Studio (http://glyphrstudio.com/)

For paid, I would recommend an app called Glyphs (https://glyphsapp.com/) which I believe is $300 for the license.

The Glyphs app has become a popular font-making app over the past few years. If you're just getting started Fontself lets you make fonts in Illustrator and Photoshop. Not nearly the fine-tuned control but you can make some cool fonts and it's pretty much instant gratification.

It's also important to get the spacing(adjusting side-bearings in each glyph/letter) nailed down as good as possible. Meaning first make it look as good as is possibly can without doing adjustments to specific pairs(kerning). To get the spacing right, try many different texts.

But hand written fonts can be tricky to space due to their organic characteristics. And like /u/RobMcDesign said it might benefit from having some logic for alternating common glyphs to create a more realistic handwritten feeling. Here's a tutorial for Glyphs showing how it can be done.

Looks like your vertical metrics are not set properly. The selection of s usually drawn between ascender and descender lines.

An article on how to set vertical metrics.

Thanks! I started out drawing the letterforms in Sketch (which i'm used to as a digital designer), then i copied them into FontForge (open-source) and now i'm working with Glyphs Mini, which i like a LOT. What do you use?

If you are on a mac I've used a trial version of Glyphs (https://glyphsapp.com) to make a font myself. Works well with vectorised graphics, don't know if it can work with PNGs or colour though..

Edit: seems like it works with PNG and colour in a couple of ways https://glyphsapp.com/tutorials/articles/tag:color . I can try to have a go at it, but I won't be near my computer before tonight.

If you're a 3rd year graphics student I think it's safe to assume that you've got a vector graphics program. Just open that thing up and begin making letters. Set up guidelines for your ascender, caps height, x-height, baseline, and descender, and have fun. Since it is for your personal brand, start with letters that you would probably use in your name (first or last, whatever). You'll find that there are many repeatable elements in type design, and some nightmarish curves. You'll learn as you go, but really, it's simple shapes and pen tool fun. Making it all work as a typeface is a different story, which is why I'm suggesting you just make the letters you need at first.

If that was fun and not too discouraging you can do a free trial of Glyphs (if you're on a mac), but even the mini version of the app is worth every penny - https://glyphsapp.com

Yes, FontForge is free (pick that up too, if you want https://fontforge.github.io ) and it is getting better every day, but Glyphs/Glyphs Mini simply FEELS smoother and easier. FontForge is perfectly capable.

There are also many tutorials available on YouTube. Some are great, some not so much. Dave Crossland has a bunch, including FontForge tips/screencasts https://www.youtube.com/user/davelab6com/videos

Have fun!

Glyphs is a great app to start on (if you have a Mac), and they have fantastic tutorials, for example:

• Diacritics: learn how to build letters with accent marks for Spanish, French, Italian, German, etc.
• Arabic: learn how to add Arabic to your font.

And in general, Glyphs has a menu where you can browse scripts and add some or all letters from that script to your font, then all that's left is to draw the letters.

Also, it would help you to discuss and research these topics if you learn the difference between a script (aka writing system or sometimes alphabet) and a language. Cyrillic is a script that is used by languages like Russian and Ukrainian – there is no such thing as a language called Cyrillic. French is a language that uses the Latin alphabet. Thai is a script that is used by the Thai language and other languages in Thailand. Hebrew language is written in Hebrew script. Arabic script is used for the Arabic language, but also other languages like Punjabi (in Pakistan), Persian and Urdu.

Thanks! I didn't release it yet, but if i do i'll post an update in this subreddit. For starters i'd suggest downloading Glyphs Mini. There are a ton of good tips online. Check Oh No Type's instagram and Grilli Type's twitter. Also Robert Bringhurst's book The Elements of Typographic Style is like a bible for type designers, so consider buying/reading that one as well. Would love to see what you come up with!

Best bang for you buck on a mac is Glyphs Mini - https://glyphsapp.com/glyphs-mini Check out the free trial first.

Fontforge is free and fine, but the interface is mildly frustrating.

I would recommend Glyphs Mini 2: https://glyphsapp.com/blog/glyphs-mini-2

I think it’s the most easy to use, there’s a tail version to play around with and it’s relatively cheap compared to other solutions.

There are things you can do to help in the process.

One example: Use class kerning. Group objects with similar visual profiles together into a kern class.

Take /D:
/O and /D are similar on the right side /H and /S are similar on the left side.

Therefore: Group /D with /H on the Left. Group /D with /O on the Right

This way, when you kern /O/V, you also have entered the same value for /D/V

If you're using Glyphs you can read more here: https://glyphsapp.com/tutorials/kerning

Thanks for the kind words!

You will want to start by designing each individual character and saving as an SVG file, I find for your first attempt, it is very helpful to use reference material. Once you have all of the characters done, you will need to use a font creation tool of choice.

There are a number of free online tools that I have used, my favorite free option is called Glyphr Studio (http://glyphrstudio.com/\)

For paid, I would recommend an app called Glyphs (https://glyphsapp.com/\) which I believe is $300 for the license.

Absolutely how I came up with the name!

Creating fonts can be a looooooooong process. This was my first one, and I opted to make it rough around the edges to kind of make the process easier and learn.

Most font creation tools will require you to have each individual character designed, and saved as an SVG file.

There are a number of free online tools that I have used, my favorite free option is called Glyphr Studio (http://glyphrstudio.com/)

For paid, I would recommend an app called Glyphs (https://glyphsapp.com/) which I believe is $300 for the license.

Most font creation tools will require you to have each individual character saved as an SVG file.

There are a number of free online tools that I have used, my favorite free option is called Glyphr Studio (http://glyphrstudio.com/)

For paid, I would recommend an app called Glyphs (https://glyphsapp.com/) which I believe is $300 for the license.

Thanks! :) I'm new to this as well I guess. I've been doing vector stuff in Adobe Illustrator for many years now but never taken the time to design a typeface before. I'm using the app Glyphs for Mac.

http://briem.net/2/2.3.1a/2.3.1.01.notes.htm This site has a crazy dated design, but the written content is still very useful to someone just starting out in designing type. Also, you can download a free trial copy of Glyphs: https://glyphsapp.com It's a very user friendly type design program.

Most font designers will build the letter shapes individually, often starting on paper and then finishing them in something like Illustrator, which allows lots of control of the curves.

The industry standard for building thew actual font and constructing the letter spacing, glyphs, kerning pairs and so on, is Fontlab Studio. There are others like Glyphs but they're newer and a bit less accomplished.

You can also open existing fonts with the software to see how they work, which is really helpful. Be warned though - the difference between a good font a great font is lots and lots of attention to detail!

Good luck!

How are your coding skills? You might need to build your own tool for this, but there are some open-source projects that can help you decode the Gamecube font (.bfn) format.

https://www.google.com/search?q=gamecube+fonts+github

I design fonts in Glyphs, which has a Python API for automating repetitive tasks. My approach would be to write a Python script that parses the .bfn format into a bitmap for each glyph. Then I would iterate through each bitmap and use the Glyphs API to add a pixel component for each pixel in the bitmap, effectively automating the whole process. The result would be a pixel font that can be easily exported to modern formats like OTF/TTF/WOFF2. Note of course that this would be a vector font drawn on a grid to look like a pixel font, and you can't always get pixel-perfect rendering of pixel fonts on modern systems.

Ah ok. Yeah I have similar problems too. I do graphic design for signage. The accuracy in Illustrator isn’t the best for technical drawings unfortunately. I have to be careful when scaling something like large dimensional channel letters on the side of a building up and down. Because the small amount not being calculated in the scaling can really throw the size off. Glad you were able to get it a little better.

Are you creating these drawings to make an actual font, or just for Illustration? If you are creating and actual font, you might check out Glyphs or Glyphs Mini. I never created a font with it yet, but I’d like to some day. I mostly use Mini for converting PostScript to OTF. https://glyphsapp.com/buy

The font design market is pretty small, hence the few offerings and high prices for commercial applications.

Glyphs has an "entry-level" price tier (Glphs Mini), which might be a good option.

Glyphs 3 (the "pro" version) is IMHO the best macOS font design tool currently available (price with edu discount if this applies).

Demo versions for both are available.

https://glyphsapp.com

For compatibility with macOS and "technical" aspects , you might also want to look into Apple's font tools, available for free from Apple's developer download website.

There's a lot of flexibility in how different fonts are positioned vertically relative to their baseline - this page (for font designers) https://glyphsapp.com/learn/vertical-metrics gives some idea.

Victor Gaultney:
Yes, we and one other user have seen this problem. Word is not properly linking the font family together. It seems to be a bug introduced in macOS Word 16.52 and still not fixed in 16.53. We saw no problems with Word 16.51 and our version 6+ fonts.
This isn't unique to our fonts. Some of the fonts that ship with macOS have the same problem (Charter, Baskerville, Palatino). Those are just a few examples of wider problem. Some other fonts like Cambria work fine.
Please complain to Microsoft! The more they hear from users the more attention they will give to it. A post on a Microsoft Forum remains unanswered:
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/office-for-mac/bold-italics-not-working-on-word/m-p/2625182
We have found no way to fix the problem or to make changes to the fonts to work around the bug.
There are two standard things to try when font family relationships turn sour in MS macOS apps:
Clear your font caches. Here's a good article on that, although since the fonts are working fine in other apps it's highly unlikely that it will help: https://glyphsapp.com/learn/eliminating-font-cache-problems
Completely uninstall and reinstall all Microsoft Office apps. Yeah that's a bit extreme, but that seems to be Microsoft's standard response.
I hope one of those might help you. I'll keep trying to find a solution. If you discover one please let us know. As a Mac user myself this is very frustrating!

If you want a pixel font you’re going to have to build it yourself with a font editor. Here’s how to do it with Glyphs, the principles probably apply to other software: https://glyphsapp.com/learn/pixelfont

> I figured I could post it here and ask for feedback on it, maybe something I can improve on

Glad to hear you're enjoying Illustrator! I've taught classes on Illustrator, so I’ll offer up some advice here: learn to draw with "nodes at extrema." I really believe this can save designers starting out years of frustration with Bézier curves, even though it's generally only applied to typeface designers (typically treated as a alleyway off of graphic design rather than a core part of it). I've typically taught this starting with an "O," then moving to a shape like an "n." An "s" can take a very long time to master.

In terms of how that applies to your poster: it feels like you're getting a handle on drawing with Bézier curves, making curves match (like at the bottom of the space needle). Learning to draw in an an orderly, systematic way can help solve this. That and the Pathfinder tool, mashing things together or breaking them apart, basically, is 95% of how I use Illustrator professionally, day to day.

However: I think what's nice about the poster is the extremely simplified ferris wheel and mountains, so the level of detail given to the Space Needle needs to be pulled back — you want to push it as simple as it can go while still making it recognizable. Since the word "SEATTLE" is at the bottom, you could probably go simpler than you could without the cue. You might want to Google "Charley Harper" and study his drawings. While he's doing all of his work by hand, it's extremely informative to people using vector drawings software.

>Maybe there really a ghost file on your Mac, but I can't say for sure.
Activate the hidden files view and search for it maybe it's saved somewhere
>
>If you didn't try yet delete all the Font Caches basically everywhere. Here is a good instruction for the adobe cache.

Glyphs is great for pixel fonts. And it’s great for Arabic fonts because it will create your feature code for you. You’ll still need to get help from an Arabic type studio if you want to actually turn it into a finished retail font, but the heavy lifting Glyphs does during development will save you from lots of work.

Yes! There’s also a really good starting walkthrough series provided by Glyphs App. It talks about their software too, but the spacing approach is still very useful regardless of what software you use.

The correct example of using ccmp+mark is shown here.

The liga feature is always activated by default, as per specification. The "ligatures" button usually activates dlig feature.

Illustrator, InDesign and other OpenType-aware Adobe apps usually process these features correctly, even if the resulting glyph is unencoded (the initial glyphs in the sub statement or statement chain have to be encoded though). Also check your languagesystem directives: do not list languages that are not available in Illustrator/InDesign or the features will become practically inaccessible.

Look at the pictures in reddit: "Reply to Question: is is possible to make the first letter of a word look different than the same letter in the word?"
By using OTL feature INIT you can achieve the required result in FontForge.
The real problem is how it works in the applications?
There are some interesting discussions on this subject in Typedrawers, Glyphs and HighLogic.

im using Glyphs, and am interested how to set up axes propely and if / how instances are set up properly

(i know that this "to do" tutorial exists, but i have the feeling im not getting 100% from my end... so i´d like to understand it better)

There's a comparison table here: https://glyphsapp.com/glyphs-mini

Pretty much the only reason you want to get the full version is if you want more advanced font development capabilities. I anticipate that for your purposes Glyphs Mini is sufficient.

[edit] also I am pretty sure you can upgrade from Mini to the full version at a later point if you need it.

Wow, this is very creative. I think you have a few characters that might be hard to read — B, D, G, and Z. But I might be wrong. It’s hard to tell if they don’t form words. I recommend that you take these into Photoshop and start arranging them into words to see what you get. If you have the money you can buy Glyphs andcreate a color SBIX or SVG font and start playing around with it that way.

There's also Glyphs Mini, which might be enough if you're just getting started. https://glyphsapp.com/glyphs-mini

There are free trials of both versions, give it a shot.

OP answered here:

>I used a program called Glyphs, and I started out creating my characters in illustrator, just because I’ve used it for years and get real comfortable using the program. I created a template with my base-line, ascending and descending lines and start plugging away. Which I started with a regular sized weight.
>
>Later I found a few tutorials on Glyphs and decided to download the program and give it a try. With variable typefaces you can set axis (weight, width, italic, slant, optical size) and then set up two masters, the weight 100 and 900. Then from there you can import your letters, like I did (copy and paste) or start drawing. As long as the character you are creating has the same number of points in the same location, you can expand the sizing to your 900 character and see the generate the 200-800. Just do that 200+ times with your characters and then set up your kerning for each character and classes.
>
>That’s a short version, but there’s a lot more that goes into it. Check this out on Glyph’s website - Creating a Variable Font

I used a program called Glyphs, and I started out creating my characters in illustrator, just because I’ve used it for years and get real comfortable using the program. I created a template with my base-line, ascending and descending lines and start plugging away. Which I started with a regular sized weight.

Later I found a few tutorials on Glyphs and decided to download the program and give it a try. With variable typefaces you can set axis (weight, width, italic, slant, optical size) and then set up two masters, the weight 100 and 900. Then from there you can import your letters, like I did (copy and paste) or start drawing. As long as the character you are creating has the same number of points in the same location, you can expand the sizing to your 900 character and see the generate the 200-800. Just do that 200+ times with your characters and then set up your kerning for each character and classes.

That’s a short version, but there’s a lot more that goes into it. Check this out on Glyph’s website - Creating a Variable Font

Trois raisons, d’une part la création des nombreux caractères accentués peut être automatisée par le designer. Tu crée les accents et places des ‘ancres’ sur les lettres qui vont définir l’emplacement où l’accent va être placé. Les caractères accentués sont ensuite générés.

https://glyphsapp.com/tutorials/diacritics

La deuxième raison possible c’est à peu près la même chose mais du côté utilisateur, n’importe quelle accent pourra être ajouté à n’importe quelle lettre et parfois plusieurs accents sont ajoutés l’un au dessus de l’autre comme c’est nécessaire dans certains langages. On appelle ça “combining accents”.

https://i.stack.imgur.com/gO2Zz.png

Et troisièmement quand tu tapes sur ton clavier un accent puis la lettre, l’accent apparait seul et t’indique que tu peux entrer la lettre que tu veux mettre en dessous. exemple: ^ ¨ ` / ê ë è

https://cdn2.glyphsapp.com/content/2-tutorials/33-diacritics/dia2-cafedeparis.png

Your prof is a shitty prof for distributing cracked software.

Glyphs offers a 30 day free trial, which will likely cover the project you are working on. Or you can buy a student discounted version. Or heck, just email them and say you don't have the money and ask if there's anything they can do to help.

Don't contribute to the cycle of theft.

Check out the tutorials for Glyphs and FontForge:

https://glyphsapp.com/tutorials http://designwithfontforge.com/en-US/index.html

They are not complete introductions to type design, but it’s interesting to browse through anyway.

You can draw your characters in Illustrator but for making an actual working typeface you’ll need a font editor like Glyphs or FontLab (there are some free options as well like the legendary Font Forge).

Glyphs supports variable fonts but I think it only supports three axes right now: https://glyphsapp.com/tutorials/creating-a-variable-font Robofont can also be used to make variable fonts and can handle more complicated stuff than Glyphs: https://robofont.com/documentation/how-tos/creating-variable-fonts/

I like it. If you have a day or two to kill try adding optical sizes so you don’t have to print it huge. Let me know if you need help with multiple masters, although it’s easy to do if you’re using Glyphs: https://glyphsapp.com/tutorials/multiple-masters-part-1-setting-up-masters

It’s a contemporary version of a decorated fat face, a style of type that appeared in London at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

As for learning to make a font with multiple weights and kerning, buy Glyphs and start reading: https://glyphsapp.com/tutorials

> I bought Glyphs and used the bundled AFDKO things with it.

Ah, okay. I don’t have MacOS (nor Windows) so that isn’t really an option for me then.

> I don't think you need to add ligatures just to have letters with dots in them if you use combining diacriticals.

I wasn’t quite sure if combining marks were treated the same as ligatures or if they were something else entirely. They seemed like overall the same concept to me, as in combining 2 glyphs to display as 1.

> How would you use AFDKO to add a diacritic?

I bought Glyphs and used the bundled AFDKO things with it.

I don't think you need to add ligatures just to have letters with dots in them if you use combining diacriticals. On the off chance I'm wrong, https://fontforge.github.io/editexample4.html#ligature would be the page you'd want to look at. I'd recommend "rlig", even though it shows up mostly in Arabic fonts.

You don't. Illustrator has absolutely no clue how to build a font file. Sorry.

You'll have to use some kind of other tool, whether it be PortablePawnShop's suggestion of a batch export script to make it easy to drop it into a font-making website, or a plugin like Fontself, or drawing the shapes in AI and cutting and pasting them into something like Glyphs.

This tutorial explains how to create a font that cycles alternates in the Glyphs type design application: https://glyphsapp.com/tutorials/features-part-3-advanced-contextual-alternates

Thanks! Any thoughts on the accented íj (the double accent is not yet supported by Unicode) — https://glyphsapp.com/tutorials/localize-your-font-accented-dutch-ij ?

You solved the problem in your question?

A friend of mine is one of the co-founders of a pretty well known Swiss type foundry, and he always recommends Glyphs.

https://glyphsapp.com/

I've never used it myself, but it definitely gets his seal of approval.

Wow, i totally missed this second comment, and this is probably the one that answers my question fully. Thank you for replying again and pointing out your reply. Let me try it.

Edit FUCK, i’ve been using less_minus rather than less_hyphen. Fml. Bet thats the damn issue.

Edit edit: okay, so is LIG an actual item, or do i need to replace it with my own code? Because that will throw an error the way it is. Also what does the ‘ designate? Looks like you use that to denote which letter to replace? I saw that in this tutorial but didn’t know what they designated.

https://imgur.com/a/lMnPTKq

(Sick font, btw!)

Don't you need a ';' at the end of the substitution rule? There wasn't one at the end of the video.

I don't use Glyphs myself, but I'm pretty sure that lookups need to be put underneath 'features' not 'prefix'. If you want to use lookups, put them inside the correct feature ('calt' for contextual alternates, 'liga' for ligatures...) though you can simply list the rules without a lookup (those are mostly for when you need to use the 'ignore sub' keyword, or need multiple contextual rules to work together nicely).

Also, there are naming conventions that need to be followed apparently:

>If you stick to this naming convention, Glyphs can build the feature code for you. All you need to do is open your Font Info (Cmd-I), go to the Features tab and click on the 'update' button in the bottom left corner.

In this case, the name 'less_minus' would be better for a ligature.

Otherwise, I would just follow this tutorial and make sure to enable ligatures when previewing the font; there is no reason for this not to work.

Q Maps Contain Code try programs like Photoshop,examine using http://prog.tools mirror image & Exposure adjustment etc. Q PICS. UNFOLD 1 PIECE AT A TIME. SOME MAP PIECES ARE PUZZLE PIECES. SOME FROM NEWER POST ARE TO GO WITH OLDER POSTS. free glyph https://glyphsapp.com/

Comfort: Just more used to Mac OS than Windows. From file structure and not having to worry about drivers whenever I plug in a new device, to things like keyboard shortcuts and other nuances. Also have invested pretty heavily in productivity software that will only work on Mac.

Security: Tremendous fear of viruses (something I've got virtually zero experience with since almost always used Mac for whole life) and things like "malware" and "spyware" that I don't understand but vaguely believe are things I do not want. Also, not knowing where to start with protection from such things ... don't most people (even non-power users) have to pay for/subscribe to a third-party virus protection software program?

Glyphs: Very fancy typography design software available on Mac but not available on Windows.

If you have a Mac, Glyphs can make bitmap fonts.

If you want the font to be monochromatic you'll probably do better to manually trace the PNGs in a font-making program or in a vector app like Illustrator.