Web Fonts
Microsoft's fonts for the Web:
- Andale Mono (formerly Monotype.com)
- Arial
- Arial Black
- Comic Sans MS
- Courier New
- Georgia
- Impact
- Times New Roman
- Trebuchet MS
- Verdana
- Webdings
- Adobe Minion Web
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FONT TIPS AND TRICKS
How to Make Your Own Font
by Maui Reyes
If you’ve always thought your handwriting is so much
better than the many fonts out there, then maybe it’s
time you made your mark: literally. Creating your own
font isn’t as hard as it seems—all you need
is a pen, a paper, a little program-know-how, and a comprehensible
penmanship.
Oh, and Macromedia’s Fontographer and Adobe Illustrator.
1.)Write down the alphabet. If you have a WACOM or any
other drawing tablet, then you can just doodle right on
to Photoshop or whatever photo editing software you have.
If you don’t have one, then a pen and paper will
do—plus a scanner. Scan it using the highest resolution
possible, so you’ll get a pretty accurate scribble
for your font.
2.)Edit it. If you think your penmanship is perfect the
way it is, noise and all, then skip this part. But if
you think it needs a little more work, go ahead and clean
it up using Photoshop or whatever photo editing software
you use. Now you’ll have to save each letter as an
individual file.
3.)Open Fontographer. This is where your font comes to
life. Go to the File menu and choose “new font”.
Double click on letter “A”, and a window will
pop up. It’s time to get busy.
4.)Cut and paste, edit if you like. Copy the letter “A”
that you have in Photoshop or whatever program you used,
and paste it in the Fontographer window. This is the “guide”
for your font—it’s not actually a font yet.
Now select “Outline” from the layers menu, then
click on “Auto Trace” from the Element menu.
This lets Fontographer trace the edges of your font for
you. Twiddle with the settings on Auto Trace to achieve
your desired tracing effect.
If Auto Trace didn’t seem to do such a good job at
certain corners, you can
always correct it. Use the arrow tool to edit points.
This takes practice to master, so be patient.
5.)Hint, hint. Bring up the Kerning dialogue to preview
your font. Now that your letter “A” is born,
you might want to make its widths and locations uniform.
This is where “Hinting” comes in play. Selecting
lines to make measurements uniform will greatly help make
it look more professional. Click on the “Hint”
on the layers panel and mark lines on the horizontal and
vertical stems (do this when you’re done editing
the points on your font).
6.)Christen your baby. You’re almost ready to generate
your font.
Highlight your alphabet and make sure to hit Correct Path
Direction, to punch holes through the R’s, O’s,
D’s, and so on. Under the Metrics menu, select Auto
Kern. Then comes the fun part: under the Element menu,
select Font Info, then General, then type in the name
of your font. When you’re done, generate the font
by going to the File menu and clicking on Generating Font
Files.
About the Author
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