Cheriton Hand and Martha

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Lesley Prince
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Cheriton Hand and Martha

Post by Lesley Prince »

Hello FontCreator Community.
I have been using FontCreator for some time now, and really love it. Much of the time I use it for amending type for specific design jobs, but I have also produced some fonts of my own which I would like to share. As a rule I don't sell these fonts; I give them to friends who can use them, but mainly use them for my own purposes. These first two, Cheriton Hand and Martha, were designed for very specific purposes.
Cheriton Hand was designed neither as a text face nor as a headline font, which might sound odd, but specifically for use as captions and labels on historical maps. I produce a lot of maps for the military history and wargaming world and wanted to capture a pseudo 'hand' produced look. Most typefaces look too 'perfect' for the look I was trying to achieve, so Cheriton Hand is very rough but I think has a 'neatness' that looks like someone carefully hand lettering, but without the perfection of a highly skilled calligrapher, if that makes sense. You can see some of the results on my website http://www.lesleyprince.com where I have loaded some of my design work.
Martha is based on my own hand writing, but is not really meant for that purpose. I designed it for my daughter, Martha, who is training as an Interfaith Minister and wanted something that looked hand produced for some of her material. Again the idea was to get away from the over refined look of a typeface based on pen letters, and retain some of the unevenness and imperfection that arises when writing with a pen. So I have not, for example, thickened any of the thin strokes, although I have straightened and made more even the overall texture, I hope. At the moment I am working on a set of swash letters and ligatures for the face, and when finished I will then produce italic and bold versions to complete the family.
I am not claiming these as perfect examples of the type designer's art, but I am quietly pleased with the results. If anyone has any comments they would like to share I would be happy to hear them.
I am also working on a series of more conventional typefaces: Black Flag, a 1930s inspired face based on the type of the Spanish Civil War; Erasmus, a blunt quill face for use in vaguely historical settings; and a series of faces based on Secretary and Chancery for use by historical re-enactors and living historians. These however are taking a lot more time to complete.
Best regards
Lesley Prince
Attachments
Martha.ttf
Martha, designed to look hand written
(25.27 KiB) Downloaded 617 times
OR Cheriton Hand Italic.ttf
Cheriton Hand Italic, for use with Cheriton Hand
(70.96 KiB) Downloaded 612 times
OR Cheriton Hand.ttf
Cheriton Hand, a rough hand caption face
(69.22 KiB) Downloaded 616 times
Dr. Lesley Prince

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Bhikkhu Pesala
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Re: Cheriton Hand and Martha

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

You will see some clipping in Martha.ttf if you look at the font test window.

The lowercase å ring has the accent way too high, and there are a few other problems with the position of accents on other composites like Ź acute, Ã tilde, and í acute.

Correct those little problems first, then go to Format, Settings, Metrics, Calculate to recalculate the font metrics and prevent the clipping. All glyph contours should lie between WinAscent and WinDescent to prevent clipping (where the top of the accents is cut off).
My FontsReviews: MainTypeFont CreatorHelpFC15 + MT12.0 @ Win 10 64-bit build 19045.2486
Lesley Prince
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Joined: Wed Mar 30, 2005 4:49 pm
Location: Nottingham, UK
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Re: Cheriton Hand and Martha

Post by Lesley Prince »

Thank you, I hadn't noticed. I am still developing the font and perhaps rushed too hastily into uploading it.
Best wishes
Lesley
Dr. Lesley Prince

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Dave Crosby
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Re: Cheriton Hand and Martha

Post by Dave Crosby »

Working with Scanahand, I'm impressed! It looks like Font Creator.

I did have a problem downloading the last font. It appears as Unknown in MainType.
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Lesley Prince
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Joined: Wed Mar 30, 2005 4:49 pm
Location: Nottingham, UK
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Re: Cheriton Hand and Martha

Post by Lesley Prince »

Thank you. Actually I used ScanaHand initially, but then spent a long time editing in FontCreator (which I much prefer, for obvious reasons). I'm not sure why one of the fonts wasn't recognised - I still have a lot of problems figuring out how any software decides what is what. Bikkhu's comments were very helpful. When I looked at Martha again I realised that I hadn't done as much work on it as I had thought :(. I know why, I wanted to let the flesh and blood Martha see the progress, and I neglected a lot of housekeeping. I am uploading the slightly more cleaned up version now. I hope you like it.
Best wishes
Lesley
Attachments
Martha.ttf
slightly cleaned up, but a lot more work to do on it yet
(29.01 KiB) Downloaded 569 times
Dr. Lesley Prince

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William
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Re: Cheriton Hand and Martha

Post by William »

Lesley Prince wrote: Martha is based on my own hand writing, ...

At the moment I am working on a set of swash letters and ligatures for the face, ....

The Martha typeface is beautiful, one of the most beautiful typefaces I have seen.

I tried it in 24 point in WordPad. It is so elegant. The thicks and thins, the design of the lowercase f, the lowercase p.

May I ask what type of pen you used to get those thicks and thins please?

I notice that you have some of the special characters needed for the Esperanto language included in the font - you have included nine of the twelve special characters needed for Esperanto.

In relation to the swash letters and ligatures. On the few occasions that I have tried a font direct from handwriting I have tried to do all of the artwork at one sitting even if I do not then use some of it until later. My thinking is that I might not be able to get the same posture, and what might be called artistic frame of mind, and so on the same at a second sitting. That might just be me, it is quite possible that some people might find that they can add a few characters later quite straightforwardly. I like fonts that have swash letters and ligatures. Have you thought of adding a few leaves, so that they can be used as separators between lines on a small poster? Would a glyph for the U+2615 HOT BEVERAGE symbol drawn with the same pen be useful for the font's intended use?

William Overington

31 January 2011
Lesley Prince
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Re: Cheriton Hand and Martha

Post by Lesley Prince »

Dear William
Thank you. I use a fairly cheap Parker pen. I forget the name, because I've had it for so long, but it is certainly at the cheap end. Over the years I found that I liked Platignum and Osmiroid fountain pens, but they became difficult to get hold of, so I went exploring. Strangely I found some of the more expensive pens to be the least pleasant to use. I was therefore delighted to find the Parker because it writes so beautifully. When not using a fountain pen I tend to use either quill pens or the range of steel pens that used to be produced by Mitchell's (of which I have a hoarder's supply).
Thank you also for your suggestions. I will certainly consider putting in some floral elements for placemarkers, but I'm not sure what the U+2615 hot beverage symbol is.
Best wishes
Lesley
Dr. Lesley Prince

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Bhikkhu Pesala
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Re: Cheriton Hand and Martha

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

You could run the font validation wizard if you have the Pro version to get rid of some of the intersecting co-ordinates and off-curve extremes. These are rather hard to spot at normal zoom levels. The accent on Ô grave is one of them. I forget where this one was.
Intersecting co-ordinates.png
Intersecting co-ordinates.png (2.24 KiB) Viewed 16498 times
The Hot Beverage Symbol is one of many Miscellaneous Symbols in the Unicode character set. I don't know how many of these your daughter would actually use. There are so many.

The dagger and double-dagger symbols look rather small compared to the other glyphs — almost like punctuation marks.
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William
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Re: Cheriton Hand and Martha

Post by William »

Lesley Prince wrote: I will certainly consider putting in some floral elements for placemarkers, but I'm not sure what the U+2615 hot beverage symbol is.

It is a symbol in the following Unicode block.

http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2600.pdf

That and other charts are available from the following page.

http://www.unicode.org/charts/

I do have something of an affection for it as the first font that I ever published was for just the then new to Unicode U+2615 HOT BEVERAGE symbol.

I have included a glyph for U+2615 HOT BEVERAGE in some of my other fonts, in different styles.

I am thinking that a HOT BEVERAGE symbol would be effective at the start of a line saying Refreshments, as in a programme leaflet where there is, say, a morning session with a break for refreshments. Or if, say, there were a meeting, with a refreshment break in the middle, then maybe a HOT BEVERAGE symbol, could be used to indicate the refreshment break as just a symbol on a line on its own, in the same size as used for the text. Also, the HOT BEVERAGE symbol could be used at a larger size as a logo for a "coffee morning" or a "peppermint tea afternoon" or similar.

William Overington

31 January 2011
Jowaco
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Re: Cheriton Hand and Martha

Post by Jowaco »

Dr Lesley, love your web pages. Indeed talented in so many fields.
Your fonts are a delight and when the advice above is heeded should be even better.

Joe.
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Re: Cheriton Hand and Martha

Post by Dave Crosby »

Jowaco wrote:Dr Lesley, love your web pages. Indeed talented in so many fields.
Your fonts are a delight and when the advice above is heeded should be even better.

Joe.
Double Ditto!Especially for the art work!
http://lesleyprince.webplus.net/page6.html
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Lesley Prince
Posts: 39
Joined: Wed Mar 30, 2005 4:49 pm
Location: Nottingham, UK
Contact:

Re: Cheriton Hand and Martha

Post by Lesley Prince »

Thank you all for your kind comments and help. I am a bit embarrassed that I uploaded Martha so prematurely - I think I was being a bit too eager :roll: . I am uploading the latest version. Following your advice I have cleaned up the errors, and taken the opportunity to modify some of the letters and adjust spacing and kerning and some of the letter sizes. On my test document it looks OK, although a bit stilted, like someone trying very hard to write 'neat'. However, once I have worked on the swash letters, and put in a couple of stray flourishes it may become more lively. I would like some advice on the swash letters (and ligatures). I am contemplating using the private use area for these, which will mean having to use Windows character map or similar for insertion. The trouble is whenever I use character map it always places the glyph at a small size, not reflecting the size of the font in use, and inserts a line break. It's irritating because it always necessitates a reformat to bring the new glyph into line with the others. Is there a better way of doing this, or is the solution I propose OK as it is?
Best wishes
Lesley Prince
Attachments
Martha.ttf
A cleaned up version of the typeface Martha, with several unfortunate errors eliminated
(30.84 KiB) Downloaded 561 times
Dr. Lesley Prince

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Everything that ever has meant anything has just as truly meant something else (Charles Fort)
Lesley Prince
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Joined: Wed Mar 30, 2005 4:49 pm
Location: Nottingham, UK
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Re: Cheriton Hand and Martha

Post by Lesley Prince »

William, I have just followed up the urls you posted - WOW! :shock: It brought out all my inherent geekyness as I slavered over the charts. Thank you very much.
Best wishes
Lesley
Dr. Lesley Prince

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Bhikkhu Pesala
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Re: Cheriton Hand and Martha

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

Lesley Prince wrote:However, once I have worked on the swash letters, and put in a couple of stray flourishes it may become more lively. I would like some advice on the swash letters (and ligatures). I am contemplating using the private use area for these, which will mean having to use Windows character map or similar for insertion.
The best method is to add OpenType Features
Lesley Prince wrote:The trouble is whenever I use character map it always places the glyph at a small size, not reflecting the size of the font in use, and inserts a line break. It's irritating because it always necessitates a reformat to bring the new glyph into line with the others. Is there a better way of doing this, or is the solution I propose OK as it is?
I have never encountered this problem when using Babelmap to insert glyphs. Which application are you using to create documents? Word or Writer both have their own built in character map for inserting symbols.

Word 2010, PagePlus X5, or Indesign will let you use OpenType features for this, which is much better.
My FontsReviews: MainTypeFont CreatorHelpFC15 + MT12.0 @ Win 10 64-bit build 19045.2486
Lesley Prince
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Joined: Wed Mar 30, 2005 4:49 pm
Location: Nottingham, UK
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Re: Cheriton Hand and Martha

Post by Lesley Prince »

Dear Bhikku
Thank you once again. I looked up your documents and tutorials on adding Open Type attributes, but it looks very complicated and I don't completely understand it. I'll spend some time reading in more detail because I have printed them off, but it looks like it requires some command line knowledge which I don't have. The last time I used command line was with very early PCDOS, and the last time I did any programming it was in Basic, many years ago.
Best wishes
Lesley
Dr. Lesley Prince

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