ChewpackChewpack

Guide · About 15 minutes

Draw your first letter

Start a font, draw a lowercase a, clean it up and space it.

  1. Step 1: Start a new font

    Choose New font, give it a name and tick the languages you want. The glyph grid then lists only the letters those languages need.

    CtrlN

  2. Step 2: Open the a

    Find a in the glyph grid and open it. The baseline, x-height and other metric lines are already drawn, with zones for overshoots.

  3. Step 3: Draw the bowl with the Pen

    Click to place corner points, drag to pull out curves, and click the first point to close the contour. Put points at the top, bottom, left and right of the curve.

    P

  4. Step 4: Add the stem

    Draw a rectangle for the stem so it overlaps the bowl. The overlap is fine for now.

    B

  5. Step 5: Remove overlap

    Select everything and merge the shapes into one clean outline.

    CtrlM

  6. Step 6: Add points at extremes

    Make sure every curve has points at its extremes; fonts render best that way.

    CtrlAltB

  7. Step 7: Check it in text

    Look at the live preview under the canvas. Hold Space to see the letter without points.

    Hold Space

  8. Step 8: Space it

    Set the left and right side bearings in the Inspector. Once n is drawn, type =n to link a side to it.