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Small-cap figures
Since neither lining nor old-style figures really go well together with small caps, you may want to make a typographer happy by adding small-cap figures to your font. It is easy in Glyphs. Simply...
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Fractions
So you have nicely done all your figures. Now it is time to add fraction figures. The good thing is, you only have to draw the numerators once, and you can re-use them as your denominators. Just shift...
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Superscript and subscript figures
I assume you already have fractions. We will re-use them for the superscript and subscript figures. Superscript: the sups feature Imagine m squared for square meter, imagine x to the third power. This...
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Multiple Masters, part 1: Setting up masters
The Adobe technology involved in interpolation is called ‘Multiple Masters’. That’s because we need at least two masters in order to calculate steps between them. To be precise, Multiple Master used...
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Multiple Masters, part 2: Keeping your outlines compatible
Understanding Outline Compatibility When interpolation happens, what actually is being interpolated are the x and y coordinates of each and every node and handle. These coordinates are stored in a...
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Multiple Masters, part 3: Setting up instances
Okay, so we have set up our masters for interpolation, and then, we made sure the paths in our glyphs are compatible. Now it is time to determine our instances. Each instance will be one font in the...
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Creating an Icon Webfont
Practically all recent web browsers have the possibility to display webfonts. So it is a good idea to save some bandwidth and put your icons into a font instead of converting them to JPEGs, PNGs,...
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Features, part 4: Positional alternates
One of the main problems for script fonts and similar designs is that the letters adopt different shapes depending on their relative position inside a word. In total, we can differentiate four...
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Sketching
There are many, many ways for achieving certain letterforms. Most methods, if not all, have in common that they trace the shapes back to the workings of a specific tool. In Latin type design theory,...
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Creating a Layered Color Font
Layer fonts are fun for the user, but always have been a lot of work for the creator. Well, it has just gotten a lot easier: Glyphs 2 has some major improvements for the layertype designers amongst...
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Creating a Layered Color Font
Layer fonts are fun for the user, but always have been a lot of work for the creator. Well, it has just gotten a lot easier: Glyphs 2 has some major improvements for the layertype designers amongst...
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Creating a Microsoft Color Font
The Microsoft approach to color fonts employs two additional OpenType tables, CPAL and COLR. CPAL describes a palette of colors, and COLR defines how the colors from CPAL are used by which glyph....
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Additional masters for individual glyphs: the brace trick
For interpolation, two-master setups work surprisingly well. Well, except that sometimes you need an extra step in between. Sure, you could sort of fake it with the Bracket Trick, or an alternative...
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Working with UFO
The Unified Font Object is an XML-based file format for storing font data. It was developed by type designers and developers Tal Leming, Just van Rossum, and Erik van Blokland. While the specs for...
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Creating a Layered Color Font
Layer fonts are fun for the user, but always have been a lot of work for the creator. Well, it has just gotten a lot easier: Glyphs 2 has some major improvements for the layertype designers amongst...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Features, part 4: Positional alternates
One of the main problems for script fonts and similar designs is that the letters adopt different shapes depending on their relative position inside a word. In total, we can differentiate four possible...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Sketching
There are many, many ways for achieving certain letterforms. Most methods, if not all, have in common that they trace the shapes back to the workings of a specific tool. In Latin type design theory, it...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Creating a Layered Color Font
Layer fonts are fun for the user, but always have been a lot of work for the creator. Well, it has just gotten a lot easier: Glyphs 2 has some major improvements for the layertype designers amongst...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Creating a Microsoft Color Font
The Microsoft approach to color fonts employs two additional OpenType tables, CPAL and COLR. CPAL describes a palette of colors, and COLR defines how the colors from CPAL are used by which glyph....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Creating an Apple Color Font
In Apple-style color fonts, bitmap images are embedded in a so-called sbix table inside the font file. Multiple images at various sizes can be assigned to each glyph. Thus the Apple device displaying...
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