Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Designing our own font... how?

This is topic Designing our own font... how? in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 06-14-2006, 08:14 AM:

We're setting up a new company, and I'm curious about what it would take to have a font created for us that we could copyright and use as part of our corporate branding. Does anyone (Bobby [Wink]

)have any info on what that typically costs and where we would start if we wanted to do that?

Thanks.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 06-14-2006, 09:19 AM:

Unless you have the ability (and lots of time) to do it yourself, you could end up spending quite a lot of money in commissioning professional freelance type designers or a professional type foundry to do it.

Most companies, even many of the big ones, simply find a commercial font family they like (and perhaps one they don't see everyone else using like crazy) and just go with that.

Some of the cost in developing custom type will depend on the nature of the font(s) needed. Large newspapers and magazines tend to spend the most money commissioning unique type since they need complete type families, not just a single font. The Houston Chronicle and Wall Street Journal have spent big sums not just getting the type designed -but actualy revising the designs for factors like how ink spreads on a page.

Well over a decade of university research in Texas and Pennsylvania and hundreds of thousands of dollars in private funds went into refining "Clearview Highway" a new typeface now appearing on big green highway signs in a number of states. It is 20% more readable than the 50 year old FHWA Series Gothic ("Highway Gothic") fonts.

But not all type needs those kinds of extremes in development.

Often a corporation might slightly alter an already existing typeface for their use. Intel is using a modified version of NeoSans for their stuff. Merrill Lynch uses a slightly altered form of Aachen Bold in their logo.

In going the D.I.Y. route, you need good vector-based drawing programs and a good font editor. Most professional type designers these days use programs like Adobe Illustrator and CorelDRAW in conjunction with Font Lab Studio 5. It also helps if you can draw pretty well and have a good scanner.

There's lots of good books about creating your own type. Type Designer Leslie Carbarga (whose retro fonts like "Magneto" were used quite a lot in Pixar's "Cars" movie) has written a number of good books on making your own type. Books like the Logo, Font & Lettering Bible and Learn Font Lab Fast are really good. You can order his fonts, books and more from his website:
Flash Fonts

If you really want to get into the serious nuts and bolts of understanding typography, the most necessary book to read is Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 06-14-2006, 12:21 PM:

Excellent info. That's a great help.

Thank you! [Smile]

Posted by Brian Michael Weidemann (Member # 2243) on 06-14-2006, 05:48 PM:

Thanks from me, too, Bobby! I downloaded the free demo of FontLab Studio and I think I'll have some fun playing around with it.

I'm also going to find me a copy of the Bringhurst book. I can't think of one of my friends who WON'T roll their eyes at me if I buy it in front of them, but it fascinates me. I really should go back to school in graphics and design work.

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 06-17-2006, 09:45 PM:

Ditto, Bobby! Noted here as well. Thanks!!

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 06-18-2006, 12:42 AM:

You're welcome, guys. I forgot to mention one of the better websites regarding typography: Typophile. It's a really good forum for discussing some of the more nuts and bolts issues with using and designing your own type. A good number of professional type designers can be found talking type there.

There are other forums and websites that exist for typography. The Adobe user forums has a room on typography, but it doesn't get anywhere near the activity of Typophile. Typographica has some good articles once in awhile.