Typophile

Quick ways of creating various weights for a font family.

djnippa

I've just recently started using FontLab Studio 5.
I know I'm being lazy, but is there any quick way or shortcuts for creating different weights for an entire font family.

I tend to design most of my fonts in Illustrator CS, but find the 'stroke' function doesn't quite work for the different weights.

I'm sure the only solution is hard work, but I was just wondering if anyone had any good techniques for solving this problem?

I have even tried designing an ultra thin font, and then the ultra fat, then morphing the rest using the 'Blend Tool' and a specific number of steps.
This seems to be the quickest method so far, although it can produce some very unexpected results if the number of points don't match.

thanks

blank

From what I just read you already seem to know the shortcuts for creating weights, and need shortcuts for polishing them up. And there’s no substitute for elbow grease.

Nick Shinn

In FontLab, I've found that "Make Parallel Path" is neater than "Expand Path".
Actions > Effects > Bold is also very useful, especially in the way it can be weighted differently for x and y axes.
You might take a look at Superpolator.

djnippa

@ Nick. That all sounds perfect for my needs. Although I've just tried to work how to use the 'Make Parallel Path", with little success.

The www.Superpolator.com software is exactly what I am looking. Looks amazing, I think I will have to make a purchase.

Huge thanks.

Thomas Phinney

FontLab also has built-in support for multiple master fonts. Which are just a sort of living blend function. Superpolator is much more flexible, of course.

T

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