Doing things in the right order
I’ve learnt a few valuable lessons recently – one of which I will share with you now. It’s a fairly basic idea, but I’d managed to overlook it so perhaps you might have done too: draw all your glyphs before you start kerning. And I mean all of them. If you’re going to add extended language support, or small caps, or swashes then it’s best to get them done first. That way they can be included in your kerning classes and everything is just much easier.
As I write a possible exception springs to mind. It may be that if you form your accented characters from composites, you may be OK to kern earlier so long as you don’t decompose the composites until you’re done. Not sure though if this is true – I’ll have to check it out. (Or if anyone is reading and knows, pass the knowledge on in the comments.)
I also discovered quite a lot about the mechanics of Fontlab recently too, and have been putting it to use making much cleaner and more uniform glyphs. Here’s a look at a typeface I’ve started on that I’m calling Rodeo for now. (Is there already a font using that name? Another thing to check.) It’s big, slabby and has stars and stripes in it because it started off as an idea for a type battle at typophile.com.
Caps for Rodeo
There are a few things that jump out immediately as needing attention, but on the whole it’s a lot more controlled that anything I’ve done before. So the next few evening will be spent drawing more glyphs, tweaking them and adding classes for small caps and swashes. I’ve set a standard sidebearing of 30 on each side for now, but I’ll look at that, and at kerning, once I’ve completed my glyph set.
Rodeo
