Of all the design disciplines, few have the elaborate history of typeface design. In fact, the terminology and techniques used in software today stem from processes that were refined over hundreds of years of practice.
These days, typeface design is a highly specialized field that impacts everything from corporate identity to your favorite movie’s ending credits. Every letter you see, whether it’s on the web or in print, was carefully crafted by a typeface designer.
But while typography is everywhere, the process of designing a typeface is far from simple. In this tutorial, we’ll give you a step-by-step guide to font creation.
Understanding the Fundamentals
At the highest level, typefaces are divided into a few different categories, with serif and sans serif being the most prominent. Serif typefaces are those with small lines or embellishments adorning each letter, while sans serif typefaces are clean and elegant. Beyond this categorical split, there are countless subcategories of typefaces, such as slab serif, script, display, and monospace, to name a few.
Despite aesthetic differences across typeface categories, in practice, the same design concepts apply to all fonts. Understanding these concepts is crucial to designing beautiful and consistent typefaces.
Here are the most important terms and concepts you’ll need starting out:
Glyphs: Each character in a typeface or font is called a glyph, including individual letters, numbers, and punctuation marks.
Baseline: Like lines on a sheet of ruled paper, the baseline is where all glyphs align at the bottom.
Cap Height: Conversely, cap height describes the height of most capital letters.
X-height: Dropping from the cap height, the x-height is the height of lowercase letters without “ascenders,” typically measured with the “x” glyph.
Ascender Height: Moving back up a little, ascender height describes the height of lowercase letters that extend past the x-height, such as the “l” and “k” glyphs.
Descender Height: Descender height describes the line for glyphs that descend below the baseline, like the “g” and “j” glyphs.
Stem: The stem is the vertical stroke of most glyphs.
Keep in mind these are only the essentials. If you’re new to these terms, it might all seem a little overwhelming. The best way to learn is to dive in and start creating, but you’ll need a typeface design tool first.
https://dafontfile.com/
