Typeface design

ORIGINAL TYPEFACE DESIGN
PROJECT

AMANDA KERN || GRDS 709 TYPOGRAPHY STUDIO I || PROFESSOR TRUDY ABADIE
SAVANNAH COLLEGE OF ART & DESIGN || JANUARY 30, 2010

PROJECT
ORIGINAL TYPEFACE DESIGN | TABLE OF CONTENTS

DESIGN NARRATIVE ............................................................................... 3

BRAINSTORMING ................................................................................ 4-7

TYPEFACE DESIGN PROCESS .............................................................. 8-9

FINAL TYPEFACE DESIGN ................................................................ 10-11

PROMO PIECE........................................................................................ 12

TYPEFACE USAGE ................................................................................. 13

AMANDA KERN || GRDS 709 TYPOGRAPHY STUDIO I || PROFESSOR TRUDY ABADIE || SAVANNAH COLLEGE OF ART & DESIGN || JANUARY 30, 2010

PROJECT
ORIGINAL TYPEFACE DESIGN | DESIGN NARRATIVE

OBJECTIVE
Designing your own typeface is not an easy task. The PART 1
creative process always begins with an idea. Many of you 1. Brainstorm the typeface concept.
have, at one point or another, thought of designing your own 2. Research to make sure this is an original idea.
typeface. Maybe your handwriting is consistent enough 3. Have a clear idea of the end product.
to convert it into a font, or maybe you have found a good 4. Consider the end use of this design. Will it be used for display only or for both display and
typeface for a particular design but would prefer a variation body text? Based on the time limitations of this course, you will probably want to work on
of it. This is your opportunity to make it happen. uppercase characters only.
5. Begin by drawing a few characters that combine vertical, horizontal, diagonal, and curved
In order to do a good job and not duplicate existing faces, strokes. In his interview, Mr. Carter suggested beginning with the letters H, O, and D. Use
you must begin with research. Please read The TypeRight pencil strokes first and then ink them in. You may want to use tracing paper for the initial
Guide to Ethical Type Design. Pay close attention to the term drawings so you can trace over them.
revival. If you are using another typeface as a foundation for 6. Define the specific traits of your typeface—weight, width, and overall texture and color.
your design, you may be creating a revival of a typeface, not Keep drawing.
an original design. 7. Post your final sketches. Continue working. Please e-mail your professor if you have any
questions or if you would like feedback along the way.

PART 2
1. Continue drawing the rest of the characters.
2. Scan the characters and begin tracing them, using a vector-based program, such as
Adobe Illustrator.
3. Clean up the characters by reducing the number of points needed to create them.
4. Print your work to check it.
5. Work on the spacing of your characters using character combinations such as O and C; V and
A; and I and H. These combinations will help you standardize the kerning.
6. Test your spacing by setting a few words.
7. Post your full typeface design on the discussion board. Your post should include the name of
the design; its concept and intended use; and a brief on the process. Which areas seemed to
be the hardest, and why? Are you satisfied with the design?
8. Visit the discussion board and provide feedback for at least two other designs.


PROJECT
ORIGINAL TYPEFACE DESIGN | BRAINSTORMING

BRAINSTORMING
For a few years now I’ve been wanting to create a font using
my daughter’s handwriting. I suppose this idea came about
a year or so after she learned to write. Everyone admired her
handwriting at such a young age that I’ve been saving pages
and pages of her handwriting over the years for when I had
time to make a font.

Every year at Christmas I have always wished I had her
handwriting because since she was five we have created
our own Christmas cards with her her handwriting and
illustrations. It’s been torture at times for both of us to go
through the process to get the perfect idea down onto paper.
In 2006 she wrote “Merry Christmas” and then her name
that I printed, however, she wrote inside EVERY card to sign
our cards.


PROJECT

BRAINSTORMING
In 2007 I had my son and so we thought a little more
simplistically with our design to save time. We decided
Hope would write “Happy Holidays from the Kern Family”
and sign the back. She also created the arms and hat for a
snowman that we glued buttons for. It’s never been an easy
process to get her handwriting just right for the cards. We
often went through writing the words several times. By this
time she was in kindergarden and was more careful with
her writing and often times got more frustrated writing the
words when she’d make mistakes. it was tough explaining
how photoshop could help us fix little mistakes. It again
wished I had a font made to help ease the process. These
cards were almost more complicated because gluing buttons
became more time consuming, even more so because Hope
then drew the carrot nose onto the snowman.


PROJECT

BRAINSTORMING
In 2008 I had plans to screenprint our Christmas cards. I
had never screenprinted myself before so I was excited to
experience the process. Hope again illustrated pictures and
type for our holiday cards. Her type began to get a little more
creative for the front where she made her own serif bubble
letters and the back had Hope’s new swirly signature. It
was tough to explain to a young child why they had to think
simplistically with color due to the screen printing process.
After burning the screens I learned that my meshcount was
slightly lower than what was needed to pull out some of
the detail in her handwriting and illustrations so we ended
up printing these on laser in the end. As you can see, again
Hope was put through the process of creating lots of type
and illustrations until we ended up with just the right
solution for our holiday cards. We learned in 2008 to save
a little time by having a premade signature, which included
Hope’s illustration of our family on the inside of the card.


PROJECT

BRAINSTORMING
In 2009 it was much tougher to get Hope’s cooperation with
our cards. She grew frustrated with a few of our ideas and
I quickly was running out of time, so after having she finish
edthe type and illustrations for the inside and back of our
cards I decided to hand render the type with a “believe
miracles will happen” theme. Our cards were professionally
printed on pearl paper and we again saved on time with
not only having the signatures put on the interior but my
photography of our family was included within the card. I’ve
continued to get many compiments and apparently it was
the conversational “card” received of the year by most I
sent it to. Of course I give a lot of credit to Hope, who’s
handwriting again helped give the cards a personal touch
that no normal font could do.

REASONING
Since she’s learned to write I’ve kept a collection of her
handwriting and illustrations and knew someday I’d make
a font with her writing. Every year she writes many stories
and letters to our friends and family, even to Santa and I find
myself keeping them for sentimental value, but also in hopes
to someday create a font that helps show the evolution of
her handwriting.


PROJECT
ORIGINAL TYPEFACE DESIGN | TYPEFACE DESIGN PROCESS

TYPEFACE DESIGN PROCESS
For this project I decided to focus on the upper and lowercase
letterforms of Hope’s current handwriting. We also made an
attempt at bubble letters because she really enjoys creating
more decorative letters lately. When we began I wasn’t
quite sure how much the font creation application would
allow us include into the font. After exploring the options I
learned that most online tools that allow font creation only
include one aspect of a font family so we focused solely on
her handwriting rather than the bubble letters to complete
the font.


PROJECT
ORIGINAL TYPEFACE DESIGN | TYPEFACE DESIGN PROCESS

After Hope completed her ABC’s and 123’s I accessed the
font creation site, http://www.yourfonts.com/, to learn more
about the process to create the font. In doing so I recalled all
the characters that could and should be included in a font.
So I had Hope create more characters, many of which she
had never seen before.


PROJECT
ORIGINAL TYPEFACE DESIGN | FINAL TYPEFACE DESIGN

FINAL TYPEFACE DESIGN
The font creation process was fairly straight forward, but
very tedious. I elected to scan the letters and then place them
into the template because I knew Hope might be challenged
understanding the lines and controlling her sizing. The
template had lines to help you know the baseline, x-height,
ascender and descender lines. Once complete you upload
the template to the web site and the font was created. The
only downfall is that there is a fee ($9.95) to purchase the
font after it’s been created. You do get to see a preview
before deciding whether or not to purchase the font.


PROJECT
ORIGINAL TYPEFACE DESIGN | FINAL TYPEFACE DESIGN

Here is the final typeface design that we’ve called “Hope -
second grader”. This is certainly worth revisiting to include ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
variations as her handwriting evolves. The biggest downfall
of using the font web site I used is that it only creates the
font in truetype format. If I were to revisit this it would
be worth investing in a font creation software that gave abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
more capabilities to create open type, postscript, and more
involved font families. However, even using this web site
was a great experience to gain a greater appreciation for
typeface design, which is definitely a tedious process to
1234567890
!@#$%^&*()_+=-~
create even the simplest of fonts.

This typeface obviously could be used for personal projects

©®®©™£¢•
such as the holiday cards, however, Hope has been talking
non-stop about creating her own book (after seeing me
make a few blurb books) so it could also be used as needed
for projects such as children’s books. She’s convinced once

This font was made using Hope Kern’s
she makes a book she’s going to take it to the bookstore
and they will sell it for her. After seeing all her work over the

second grade handwriting.
years on our holiday cards and now in her handwriting for
the font you never know, it might not be long before she has
her own book made using her own font.


PROJECT
ORIGINAL TYPEFACE DESIGN | PROMO PIECE

PROMO PIECE
A promotional postcard was created for the font for Veer, a
company well known for offering exlusive typefaces.


PROJECT
ORIGINAL TYPEFACE DESIGN | TYPEFACE USAGE

TYPEFACE USAGE
I’ve elected to use the typeface created in a way that I felt
it would most appropriately and most often be used. Notes
or greeting cards would most likely be the way the typeface
would be used to give a personal touch. In this case I worked
with my daugther to create a panda illustration that would
be suitable. In the end the type was simple and to the point
to communicate the message. After using the typeface in a
project I wished there was a bolder version to use.


Typeface design

More Related Content

What's hot

Similar to Typeface design

More from Amanda Kern

Typeface design