Font Dimensions

[Surfer]

Greetings!

I've waited a long time to locate such a program.

Question. I'm adding a letter I've scanned in. It's the letter "g". The lower part is very low. Is there some dialog box where I can adjust the depth a letter can go when it's created? Calligraphic fonts tend to have long tails, swirls and such. I was hoping there would be some way to allow the font to go "below the line".

Years ago I bought a Calligraphy book. The letters are beautiful. However I've never seen the likes of such a beautiful font on the net: free or otherwise. So, I figured I'd create a font based on this beautiful calligraphic style. But the fonts I scanned are a little large. Do I just shrink them until they are all uniform?

Thanks, Surfer

[Erwin Denissen]

Question. I'm adding a letter I've scanned in. It's the letter "g". The lower part is very low. Is there some dialog box where I can adjust the depth a letter can go when it's created? Calligraphic fonts tend to have long tails, swirls and such. I was hoping there would be some way to allow the font to go "below the line".

There is no special dialog box for adjusting the depth off a single glyph.

Everything below the bottom line will be clipped, so it is recommended to not go below this line. You could lower the bottom line if necessary.

To change the top and bottom metrics; select Settings from the Format menu to open the Font Settings window and select the Windows page. Here you can change the Win Ascent (Top) and Win Descent (Bottom).

In Format->Tables you might have to remove the VDMX table. If Windows does not locate this table in a font, it will calculate those values itself. This will take some extra milliseconds the first time it is loaded into the rasterizer. I don't think we should worry about that.

To regenerate this table you could use a utility from Microsoft called CacheTT, located at:
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/tools/tools.htm

CacheTT is a utility to enable the modification of TrueType and TrueType Open files. Modifications include creation/ modification of one or more of the tables VDMX, hdmx and LTSH by calculating and caching values obtained from the Rasterizer. The resulting font is a complete and correct font.

Years ago I bought a Calligraphy book. The letters are beautiful. However I've never seen the likes of such a beautiful font on the net: free or otherwise. So, I figured I'd create a font based on this beautiful calligraphic style. But the fonts I scanned are a little large. Do I just shrink them until they are all uniform?

Yes, you could shrink them down or decrease the Multiplier value in the Glyph page on the Import Image window.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

If the font is from a book on calligraphy, it is sure to be subject to copyright. If you want to do anything with the results of your labour it is best to look at the Ethics of Type Design before you start.

Almost inevitably you would be duplicating work that has already been done to produce something that cannot legally be used, or given away, let alone sold. Since you could probably buy the Truetype font for £20 or less it makes little sense to spend hundreds of hours recreating it, except as an exercise in learning about Typefaces and how to use Font Creator.

It might be wiser to find some beautiful handwriting by a family member and use that as the basis for your font. In either case, you are likely to find some missing letters, numerals, or punctuation, and you will have the conundrum of how to create one that matches the rest of the typeface. Don't be discouraged from learning about type, it is an enjoyable hobby, but if you want to take it further and produce something that can be shared, understand the legal implications first.

To search for the font on the net, type the author's name into Google - if they are into calligraphy they might already produce and sell their own typefaces too.

[Chris Eilers]

I agree with Bhikkhu that it’s good to respect the artistic creations of others, and their right to their creations, even in an electronic world that often makes it so easy to get away with evading copyright. (The vast bulk of fonts on the market are blatant rip-offs of other fonts). However, I guess this whole question is partly a matter of personal choice.

As far as replicating calligraphy is concerned, I must say that I share your desire to see its best examples make the transition to the electronic world. I did calligraphy for a while many years ago and recently went through the calligraphy books I’ve got. There are some really beautiful hand-lettered fonts that don’t seem to have found their way into electronic incarnations. Also, there are many very beautiful wood and lead fonts from the earliest days of book printing. Of course, there are modern fonts “based” on these old fonts, but they often look too Brylcreemed for my taste. Rather like the difference between real food and McDonalds.

It seems that electronic fonts have gone through several stages:-
Stage 1: Incredibly expensive fonts only affordable by dedicated typesetting companies.
Stage 2: Rip-offs of existing fonts, badly scanned. “20,000 fonts for $20!”
Stage 3: The current profusion of fonts, in all different qualities and prices, many of them free. The Photoshop-inspired blending of fonts into graphics. The discovery of font-making by enthusiastic amateurs and the moans of professional font designers as their income opportunities shrink. A style coherence despite the profusion -- a kind of electronic aesthetic dominated by the mathematics of Bezier curves.

And for the future ?? :-
Stage 4. An electronic re-creation of the rough-and-ready outlines of the early book fonts. An imaginative use of greyscale variations of tint within the font outlines. An Open-Type inspired re-creation of the subtle variations (computer-generated?) in each glyph that characterise calligraphic lettering. A part of me cringes at this thought. Unless produced with aesthetic integrity, such fonts could end up looking like the second generation of plastics technology in the 1950s -- ghastly imitations of wood grain and crocodile skin, etc.
Stage 5. Maybe similar to the better plastics textures and patterns of today. An aesthetic that springs honestly and effectively from the technology itself. Probably this awaits font creation programs as yet unborn, maybe designers as yet unborn.

[Surfer]

Thanks guys for the responses. I appreciate your insight and the time you took to respond (and so quickly!).

I would say this is a personal project. Partly to get to know Font Creator itself, and partly to see this font used on—y'know—a certificate I make for a friend for his birthday, etc. It's not intended to be shared, really. (But it is a possibility—based on the author's response.)

However: in case this post russled any feathers I wish to make it clear that I wrote the author to know what his response will be on this matter. I mean: after all, it's his lettering style. Perhaps he'll consider this an honor. And perhaps a copyright infringement. Hmm. I'm not sure.

So I'll keep y'all posted on what it is he says. I guess that'll be the definitive answer.

The artist's name: David Lance Goines
The artist's website: http://www.goines.net/
The source book: An Introduction to the Elements of Calligraphy

No secrets.

Surfer