Font metrics for professional beginners! Help!

Gorgoyle16 March 2009 · 03:02

I got already designed type faces in Illustrator but I need now to implement them in FontLab. What I need is to not screw something on the beginning! Like dimensions of my letters in Illustrator and dimensions of my letters implemented in FontLab like font height, width, ascender, descender etc. Need help or some good tutorial or guide for professionals not amateurs!!! cause I wanna do my first font well.

My font on which I currently working is non serif and modern looking. I need some spacing/kerning advices too. I need to make "my beauty" right! Help me!

Roger S. Nelsson16 March 2009 · 03:15

Starting with the most important: vertical metrics (it is the "worst" to correct later if you get it wrong ;)

If you work with a UPM of 1000, try to import your capital letters around 700 in height in FontLab. This will make them pretty "standard" in height compared to other fonts.

As for spacing and kerning: try things out, test it, look at other (similar) fonts and learn from them ;)

There are some very good articles in the TypoWiki - look especially in the "How-To" section...

Good luck! :)