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Suppose somebody develops a new language, with totally new characters. And a font for the same has to be created. How does one do that?

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They draw it. Then digitize it. Then lobby the computer industry to develop a new keyboard to use the new characters. – DA01 May 13 '12 at 23:14
This is an interesting question, and I think drawing the characters and being able to type them are only part of it. I think the answer largely depends on how widely supported you need the language to be (e.g. an academic project running in a single lab vs (for argument's sake) suddenly discovering a hitherto unknown major civilisation who need to be communicated with?) – e100 May 16 '12 at 11:44

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Creating a customized language font is not at all different from creating a standard font, as long as a standard keyboard can be used to write it:

Ad DA01 mentions, you can start by drawing your font and digitizing it using a tablet or re-drawing your curves with a scanner and software of your choice. Then you can use a program to convert your characters into a font.

ILoveTypography has a nice article on this: http://ilovetypography.com/2007/10/22/so-you-want-to-create-a-font-part-1/ There you can find a list of alternatives, methods and suggestions (there is also a part 2).

If your font has nothing to do with the current alphabets, then you will have to either create a new input hardware / software or use your language in a different way.

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