Hello All,
I am looking for a free small x-height serif font that has the minimum printing space usage characteristics of Linden Hill but is a regular serif and not a slab serif.
I would also like to know if it is possible to design fonts using a computer instead of manually drawing them on a drawing board. If it is, what are some good application programs to use to design fonts.
Thanks for any feedback you can provide.
Jim Williams
Hi Jim,
I'm afraid I don't know much about free fonts, but I can say that if you're looking for spatial efficiency, a small x-height is counterproductive. It's the printed size of the band occupied by x etc. that determines type's apparent size, so the smaller the x-height, the larger the point size required.
On Windows, most people use FontLab Studio (or, for beginners, the same company's TypeTool) to design fonts. On Macs, Glyphs has become popular. There's also the free and capable but slightly forbidding FontForge.
By the way, "slab serif" usually implies serifs that are particularly thick, not just rectangular, as in Linden Hill (which is really Fred Goudy's Deepdene, renamed probably for legal reasons).
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