Splice: Hybrid font (sketched A-Z, numbers and symbols)

This is my FINAL hybrid font! I love it! The sketches are looking great, just to digitize it to see how it comes out! Drawing the font like the san-serif on graph paper, gets all the letters in the same proportion and I have control over them.

Help to make my font real!

I found these great places that show how to make my font come to life from illustrator to the font editing software! Once I have completed all of my font I will definitely be using some help and tips from these sites!

1> Designing a Typeface on vector | tuts+

2> Cool Fonts on how do you create fonts?

3> Finally from Bittbox, How to: Make a Hand-Drawn Font?

Great sites with some really good help! The instructions are simple enough to understand and you can also have a bit of fun from the help that they do give!

Fonstruct = Dead end | Investing Opportunities...

I tried and I failed, yet I tried again and failed even badly! Upon trying to use fontstruct again to create my font I just cannot seem to get the curves as smooth as I want them. I have decided to stop with Fontstruct and invest in some font editor software like fontographer. Since this is my FMP, I might as well invest in some good software so that my final font is good and clean like I want it to be, and since people are going to be able to download it in the end, I clearly want no faults with it!

I started to look at cheap, affordable font editors, since I can't afford a high end package like

Fontlab studio. But I came across another font editor, Typetool, it's a basic font editor, recommended for students and hobby typographers! It only costs 77.35 so it might do the job?

San_Serif Font: Numbers

Hmmm, I'm not keen on the numbers now as I look at them, I much prefer the sketched versions of these than the digital version! but this post finished my dad font! now I can start mixing the two font to make the hybrid! This should be lots of fun!!

San_Serif Font: Punctuation/Symbols

These are all the, if not most of the punctuation and symbols from the dad font! My fav from all the characters is the percentage mark, looks pretty interesting!

San_Serif Font: A-Z lowercase

Another tick in the box. Lowercase of dad font done and dusted. All thats left now is mac'in up the punctuation/symbols and the numbers to finish this font!

I know that the blackletter and san-serif font aren't presented the best possible way! but these posts are just to show how the fonts are getting along!

San_Serif Font: A-Z Uppercase

Uppercase of dad font digitized and it looks pretty good actually, no complaints yet! hope everything else goes as smoothly as this!

San_Serif Font: Final Sketches

And this is the other half of the puzzle that will make my hybrid come to life, my dad font! I did the sketches on graph paper this time unlike the blackletter font (which I should have done) since I got a much better scale and lines for the edges and it helped a LOT! just to digitize this as well! (though, I kinda do like them just sketched, the pencil lines are pretty strong by themselves)

The font includes, like the blackletter, Complete A-Z in both upper and lower case, also with punctuation/symbols and numbers!

Blackletter font: Symbols + Numbers

Yes, yes I know if you look up close the font is not perfect, but if I literally sit here and try to perfect all three fonts (the mom font, the dad font and then the final hybrid font), I will be here till Feb. 2011. I just needed these quick yet satisfactory mom and dad fonts to give me a nice and crisp Hybrid font.

This is the last of my blackletter font! next up is my San-serif font (dad font)

Blackletter font: Lowercase

Digitized the smaller case of my blackletter font, it's a long and tedious task since my mom and dad font aren't going to be downloaded in the end and I can just present them as sketches, but I wanted to do this, to get the hybrid right the first time! and it's coming along slowly but surely!

Blackletter font: Uppercase (digital)

Slowly but surely I'm refining all the sketched letters on Illustrator, and it's finally becoming fun again! but lots more to do!

Fontstruct: great fun or just no helpful at all? :(

Ok, since I had decided to take a break from fontstruct since it was being a pain in the neck, I went back to it the other day to give it another go!

So... the catch behind the whole free service from the providers is that you make your font out of pixels, which doesn't seem much of a problem when you think about it, since everything (digitally) is made out of tiny pixels. BUT! looking at all the curves I have to create with the hybrid, I want a VERY VERY smooth looking font, so for me to be able to achieve that, I literally have to use A LOT of pixels to make that smooth looking font. And of course, this is my FMP, so I want this hybrid font near enough perfection. Now, I'm not accepting defeat with fontstruct, but sometimes, while using it, it just makes me want to through my laptop across the room and just forget about it all....

oh well, be positive, think positive... so everything should be positive right?

Final Blackletter Font: Stage 1 Cleared

Ok, so I've finished the hard part with just the blackletter now, all I gotta do is mac it all up now, which shouldn't be a problem!

The whole font is done including the A-Z in upper and lowercase with all the punctuation and symbols and the numbers!

Guitar Hero ||| inspiration...

Ok, so I took a break and played games, but I noticed something. The game I was playing had a font displayed, which looked rather cool.

Now ofcourse, the game I was playing was Guitar hero 3, but I really liked the game's theme font. As it's a blackletter (a blackletter with style), I thought I could get some ideas out of the few letters I saw and help me with my font. I specially like the 'S', very angular but the curves are pretty too.

Making the parent fonts: fun work or just a chore?

Ok, so making the two fonts before the actual hybrid didn't seem much of a task when I thought about it. But once you actually start thinking about making the font (which is not even going to be downloaded in the end) it starts to become tiresome. BUT! I want to give the two fonts that will be mixing together as much design time as I will be giving to the hybrid, so that everything is perfect in the end with the hybrid. Don't wanna mess this up, so I guess I've just gotta put my head down and get this part done!

After some thinking...

I have been playing around in Fontstruct and turns out it bloody well takes time to create just one letter and since my aim was to create 3 separate fonts, looking at the time window I have, I've had to think things through. Now, I will just design the mum and dad font on illustrator, and create the hybrid font on Fonstruct.

Also, I was having problems on Fontstruct before, as the letters came out too pixely. So, I just planned the letter on graph paper first, using the squares on the paper as compared to the pixels on fontstruct! So far it is working just fine, as I have been digitizing my first generation hybrids on fontstruct.

Looking for inspiration

Since I have to get a move on with making the blackletter font, as that is the priority in my FMP right now, I thought I'd start to look at some blackletter fonts for inspiration to design my own font. I understand I looked at a few blackletter fonts before but this time I wanted to gather some fonts through primary research.

First Generation hybrids

These are the rest of my experimental hybrids from the fonts Proclamate light light and Helvetica regular.

They are small case letters and I did these experimental hybrids just to get me used to how dominant and recessive traits will play a part in type genetics (my favourite crossbreed was the 'b'). I tried out breeding capitals too, and the pictures following show all of my results.

The uppercase 'P' and 'E' I'm not happy with them at all. I think I was trying too hard with them and they just got ruined in that process but thats my area to improve in for next time.

My next step will be to create my own fonts. That will include;

1 serif blackletter font

1 san-serif font

1 offspring of the above two (a hybrid font)

Fonstruct....I thought it was going to be so simple...

After some sketches, I thought illustrator isn't helping me much, and plus I would like to start creating the hybrid digitally but also so it is a useable font in the end, so I have started designing the mock up sketches of the experimental hybrid letters in Fonstruct, which is an awesome site where you can create your own fonts with the help of pixels, for free!!

Since it is very difficult to figure how to make a smooth serif on this using just pixels, my beginning attempts have been lame, but I think with some planning and graph paper, I could maybe figure it out, I guess it just takes patience!

And a hybrid is born....

After choosing a few letters to start breeding, I've started to note down the key traits of each font character and started to rationalise what will make it to the hybrid and what will be cast as a recessive trait.

Ok, so I did a very quick sketch on the hybrid, and then scanned it so that I could make a digital copy of it on illustrator. The curves aren't the way I would like them to be, so that needs to improve, but the overall shape of the hybrid is good.