I have recently created my own font/typeface with Adobe Illustrator, and I would like to use it as a real font (e.g I would like to use it as I type something).
Is this possible in Adobe Illustrator or would I need a different software?
If so what program would be good for creating a font?
To create a font, you need a font editing program. FontCreator is quite popular and inexpensive. FontForge is an open source font editor, if you're up to the somewhat dense documentation. FontLab has a utility called TypeTool, a little more expensive but has a good reputation.
I suggest that you use BirdFont and follow these steps to import your work in the editor.
Draw a triangle and a rectangle. Use them as test shapes to decide what your x-height should be.
Export your font and compare your test glyphs to other font. (Ctrl+e / Cmd+E)
Turn on grid and guidelines for x-height and margin. Create four rectangular markers at the bottom line, baseline, x-height and top.
Save your glyph template as SVG. (Import an Export -> Export glyphs as SVG)
Open your glyph template in Illustrator and turn on rulers (Ctrl+r). Drag down new lines from the ruler to the bottom line, baseline, x-height and top positions.
Insert your glyphs in to the template file.
Resize the glyph.
Save your glyph with a different name.
Import the file in BirdFont. (Import an Export -> Import SVG)
You can also copy and paste glyphs between the two programs with newer versions of BirdFont and Illustrator. You still need to decide what your x-height should be but you might save a few seconds if you skip the step where you save the glyph as a separate SVG file.
You need a program that can make actual font files from your vector illustrations.
In the 'olden days' the primary tool for that was Macromedia Fontographer, which is now owned by Fontlab
Fontlab also makes FontLab Studio and several other Font creating and designing programs that much of the type design industry uses.
Alternatives to their offerings would be Glyphs for OSX or the open source FontForge
UPDATE:
I haven't yet tried it, but a new open source font editor has shown up called Bird Font:
This is the fastest, simplest, FREE method I've found so far to create a font from scratch. Although, if you have the glyphs already created, Fontforge can import svg files.
Today the easiest way to make an actual font in Illustrator (or Photoshop) is to directly install in Illustrator (or PS) an extension dedicated for that: Fontself Maker.
Pros:
Cons:
A step-by-step tuto here to 'Create your own hand lettered font in minutes'.
There is a very careful procedure for taking your Illustrator work over to FontLab, should you decide to go that route. I've noted it before, but there's no harm in repeating I suppose.
Pulled directly from FontLab (they didn't bother to make theirs readable).
In Illustrator:
- Edit > Preferences > Units & Undo or Units & Display Performance: Change all units to points (1 point is equal to 1 unit in TypeTool).
- Preferences > Files & Clipboard: Disable PDF, enable AICB and select Preserve Paths.
- Preferences > Guides & Grid: Gridline every 10 pt and Subdivisions 10.
- Set the width of the document in points to be the double of the UPM size of your font (e.g. 2000 pt for a 1000 UPM font).
- Set the height of the document to be the same as UPM size — Descender (e.g. 1000 — (-263) = 1263 pt).
- Select Window > Info, View > Show Rulers, View > Snap to Grid.
- Disable View > Guides > Lock Guides.
- Optionally select View > Show Grid.
- Position a guide at the height that has the same (positive) value as the (negative) descender of your font (e.g. 263 in our example).
- Position a guideline and position it at 0.
- Position the origin point to where the two guidelines cross.
- Drag guidelines to the positions of your ascender, x-height, and caps height.
One font creation tool that I find many Type Designers recently switching to is RoboFont (which was created by a Type Designer). You might want to take a look at that as well.
It offers tutorials to get you started along with some extensions for the program.
Note: Mac only
Edit: I forgot to add this video which shows some features - http://vimeo.com/34351633
I find that Philippa Berry Smith's tutorials on YouTube are excellent, like this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSi1OgvuCPk
She shows you how to draw the font in illustrator.
And then, this one is great for how to make sure the fonts are the right size in illustrator, then how to export them to FontLab:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yI-7e4nRNus
Plus she has an Kiwi accent, which is fun.
Seeing as this post is like a list of font-creation software, I'd like to add another for everyone to consider. I recently came across it on Kickstarter, and whilst I haven't tried it, it looks quite promising.
It's called Prototypo. It's a brand new alternative, and it's crowdfunded!
Definitely worth considering in future, though it's currently in private beta. You can subscribe to their newsletter to try and win access to the beta, I know I'm going to.
I am trying to do the same thing.
I got fontographer and FontLab Studio from FontLab. I think there is a free demo.
The pen tool is less then rad in these programs. For my purposed I need to make layers because I'm going to stack them with CSS to make a logo.
So I made the characters in Illustrato. THEN -
I went through this turorial.
and I watched this tutorial.
I'm still pretty lost. My characters aren't showing up on the baseline properly.
But I think this should get you going in the right direction.
Good Luck!
