Are you tired of the daily monotony of using regular fonts? Or maybe you have any creative ideas for your own font and its style? If yes, then we want to tell you that since you are confident and creative enough, it’s time to start visiting free sites where you can bring all your font-related ideas to life. Yes, that's right, there are plenty of resources online for graphic designers where you can design and design your own fonts. In the future, you can use them in your own projects or share them with others. It's worth noting that there is a huge demand for new and exciting types of fonts right now. Believe me, the graphic world simply needs talented font developers, and if you are good at it, then you can also earn extra money from it.
We offer you a list of 10 free resources with tools to help you get creative and create new creative fonts.
Bird Font is an online tool for creating and editing vector graphics. The service offers import and export settings for True Type Font (TTF), Embedded OpenType Font (EOF) and Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG). On the site you can explore many possibilities and tools for creating various vector images. The most popular among them are curve orientation, contextual linking substitution, kerning, object rotation, background change and much more.
The site is designed specifically for creating fonts and offers an effective platform for their design. The resource will be useful for enthusiasts who like to experiment with fonts and create new types. With FontStruct, you can create fonts using various geometric shapes, such as tiles or brick mesh. In addition, here you can find ready-made new types of fonts. Fonts created with FontStruct are called FontStructions and can be installed or loaded into a True Type Font (.ttp) file. They can also be used in Photoshop, Mac/Windows applications or on websites and blogs. This is a site that is really worth checking out.
Glyphr Studio is a font design and editing program and tool that offers many interesting features. On Glyphr Studio, you can create your own character ligatures and glyphs using various vector editing tools such as pen and pointer. One of its signature benefits of the service is the import of SVG code from Inkscape and Illustrator. The tool offers dual screen mode for easy designing and editing. Among other things, Glyphr Studio supports font files such as True Type Font (TTF), Embedded OpenType Font (EOF), and Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) font files.
The site is a browser-based tool for designing and editing bitmap fonts. The service allows you to download or upload fonts to their gallery in a True Type Font file.
MyScriptFont is a great online tool for creating vector fonts based on your own handwriting. All you need to do is download the template in PDF or PNG format and then print it. Next, write the text in it by hand, scan it and upload it to the website (the program supports JPG, PNG, PDF and other formats). You can also use Paint to write text. Unlike other similar tools, MyScriptFont allows you to view and download your handwritten font in Open Type and True Type formats for free. Handwritten fonts can be used in graphics programs, greeting cards, logos, personal letters and more.
FontForge is an online platform for creating free fonts. It has an easy to use user interface and a built-in program for comparing different fonts. With FontForge, you can create and edit fonts in a variety of formats, including PostScript, SVG, True Type, Open Type and more. Also, at your service is the full text of the textbook, which helps in professional training in creating fonts.
FontArk is what every font designer is looking for. Access to the service is only free for a limited time, but it is actually worth taking advantage of. FontArk is a browser-based program and generation of font tools with a built-in fluid grid system. FontArk's design and editing tools are what sets the site apart from its contemporaries. It offers users in real time, several glyphs, tools for editing characters and designing fonts, as well as logos. Moreover, it offers many other features and supports multiple languages.
PaintFont.com is another great tool for converting handwritten text into vector fonts. The site has an extensive set of ready-made characters classified into categories such as ligatures, math and punctuation. The tool offers glyphs and symbols from various languages: Japanese, German, Turkish, Hebrew, Spanish and others.
You can create fonts or upload and modify your own using the custom tools on Fontastic. The service offers several features such as adding or changing colors, adding shadows, changing zoom, and syncing across multiple devices. The site also contains a huge collection of vector icons that can be used for implementation in any of your design projects. They are sorted into several categories for complete convenience. 
This service can be called an ideal place for professional font designers and just amateurs. The service has more than 20 parameters that allow you to experiment with built-in glyphs. Also here you will find several editing and design functions, which will be expanded in the future. 
A few more resources you might find useful:
FontPunk.com is a free online tool for adding styles and visual effects to create a visually appealing font for an advertisement, flyer or website.
FontConverter.org– free online font file converter.
Font Squirrel is a free online resource with a collection of web fonts that are licensed for commercial use.
Conclusion
Now you know that designing your own fonts is very easy if you have the right resources. For do-it-yourselfers and hobbyists, these resources are useful for learning practical skills such as kerning, adjusting curves, learning structural variations, and glyph packaging.
Design is a vast ocean, growing every day. New types of fonts are created every day or by making custom changes to existing fonts. Fonts enhance the visual appeal of textual content and that is why designers are constantly looking for new font styles to make their work as fresh and innovative as possible.
The readability of any test is often determined to a fairly high degree by the font used to write it. Many users do not want to be content with what is offered by modern ones and try to create their own fonts. However, many problems arise in the process if some important points are not taken into account. Creating your own beautiful font is not as easy as it might seem at first glance. Therefore, let’s try to consider some of the nuances associated with this painstaking work.
How to create a beautiful font: problem statement
First of all, at the initial stage you should clearly define your main goals. Whether the font will be created for academic publications, comics or entertainment projects - this largely determines the main stages of the work.
Next, you need to decide exactly how the created font should look like and whether it will fit into the future project (sans serif font, symbols with the correct geometry, and finally, whether the font will be based on the designer’s own handwriting), how well it will look in long documents , and not just in the headlines.
Naturally, you should consider how the symbols will be visually perceived when enlarged. It is also worth paying attention to in the whole document. Of course, some simple program can be used to change the font of an existing one, but most experts do not recommend using other fonts as a basis, because if you want to achieve originality, such tools are not suitable for the job (except perhaps only for understanding the basics of editing).
First stage
Creating chopped letters is considered more difficult, so it’s better to start with a handwritten font. A program for creating a font from your handwriting can be used at later stages, but at the very beginning it is recommended to draw a few characters by hand, and then put some combination of them together and see how it looks in general terms.
This approach allows you to immediately assess many shortcomings, because handwriting can be very specific and highly individual, and not all readers of future texts will be able to read it. Uncomfortable reading may simply turn off a potential reader.
In the simplest case, you can even simply take photographs of the letters, and then form words or combinations from them (on a computer or manually from natural photographs).
First letters
There is no need to immediately implement computer processing and programs for creating fonts. You should start by creating what are considered to be two main characters. These are the uppercase Latin letters “n” and “o”, and the capital letters “O” and “H”.
Some experts in this field recommend using the combination "adhension" (or "adhencion"). It is believed that manually creating sequences of these particular characters in the early stages of developing a future font allows you to fully understand the geometry and proportions of each letter, number or symbol.
In the future, this will simplify the task of drawing characters in a computer program. But initially it is better to draw them manually, since without certain knowledge on a computer it will be quite problematic to create smooth lines or transitions.
Font creation programs: transferring the font to your computer
But let’s say the font has been created, and so far no specific program has been used to create it. The next step is to transfer the font to a computer environment. It goes without saying that you will need a scanner and appropriate software for this.
And for these purposes, you can use many applications, but all those who have encountered such software packages, as a rule, recommend using Adobe Illustrator - a program that is universal in all respects. It is advisable to first paint over the drawn symbols with a bright marker, and then also make an edge with a pen to smooth out the shapes.
But not all novice designers have practical skills in working with this application, since the program itself is considered quite difficult for beginners to master. Therefore, a high-quality, although not new, application called FontLab Studio is perfect.
Despite its somewhat outdated nature, the application has in its arsenal quite a lot of professional-level modules, including Bizet's drawing tools, tools for viewing glyphs in two-dimensional space, and not just in horizontal planes, various kinds of automatic converters and font merging tools. In addition, this software product supports most well-known font formats (TrueType, ASCII Unix, Open TrueType, Mac TrueType), as well as designs created using the same Adobe Illustrator in BMP, AI, TIFF, EPS, etc. formats.
If you don't want to draw yourself...
In such a situation, the BirdFont utility is perfect for the user - a small program for creating your own font, as they say, from scratch.
Despite its simplicity, the application has an excellent toolkit, where you can separately note the drawing of letters or symbols with reference to a geometric grid, the creation of glyphs on top of existing images, the automatic conversion of symbols into vector form, advanced capabilities for importing fonts and adding metadata.
If you want to make a project based on your own handwriting, you can use the FontCreator application. The program is quite easy to learn and has good capabilities not only for creating, but also for testing fonts, even linked to a standard PCI keyboard with different layouts.
Font testing
Finally, the font is created and processed for further use. At the next stage, you should first pay attention to how the characters will look in one word, line, paragraph or in the full text in terms of its readability.
It's also worth trying to resize the text and see how well it looks at different scaling options. Almost all programs for creating fonts have such capabilities, but it’s better to just print the text and see for yourself. You can hang a sheet of printed text in different sizes on the wall and look at it from afar or up close to analyze any shortcomings. It is also advisable to send some text to acquaintances or friends so that they can evaluate the work, because the author, as a rule, has only his own, purely personal opinion and perception of what was done.
What programs are best to use?
Now all that remains is to look at the most popular programs for creating fonts, which are mostly used by both professional designers and ordinary users. Among all the diversity that is offered on the computer technology market today, the following software products are worth special mention:
- FontLab Studio;
- FontCreator;
- BirdFont;
- Fontographer;
- FontForge;
- Type 3.2 font editor;
- FontStruct;
- BitFontMaker2;
- Fontifier;
- YourFonts;
- Glyphr;
- iFontMaker;
- FontArk;
- MyScriptFont etc.
In this list you can find programs for creating fonts in Russian, free and paid utilities. And in terms of capabilities they differ quite significantly. So you will have to choose based on your own considerations, needs, or testing applications at work.
Instead of a total
As can be understood from all of the above, the process of creating your own font, on the one hand, looks quite simple (when using programs), but on the other, it requires imagination and perseverance. Here, the emphasis was specifically placed on developing your own font, rather than processing an existing one, since a creative approach on the part of the designer always looks more interesting than copying something that already existed. I would like to hope that these simple tips will help all beginners understand all the stages in developing their projects. Well, programs for creating fonts are a second matter. The main thing is the original idea of the creator himself, so to speak, a creative approach to solving the problem. And this, as you know, is welcomed first of all.
There are hundreds of different fonts freely available on the Internet, including exotic and handwritten ones, but even such an abundance of them will be completely useless if you need a font that imitates your own handwriting. The reasons why such simulation may be needed may vary, but it is not so much a matter of reasons, but how to implement it.
It turns out that it is very simple. To do this you need a program High-Logic FontCreator and a little perseverance and patience.
Before moving on to the description of the process, let me say a few words about the process itself. . This program is intended for creating and editing fonts. With it, you can update existing and add new symbols, correct their markup, view and install fonts, fix incorrectly displayed fonts, and convert images to text.
Some useful information
So, install and run the program. Next, in the main menu, select File -> Open -> Font File and open any Cyrillic font, copied in advance to a folder convenient for you. FontCreator will parse and display its contents in an internal window, each cell of which will contain a specific character.
If you double-click on such a cell, the program will open the symbol in a small window with a grid layout with guides.
By grabbing the markers with the mouse, you can change the font size, its height and width, the angle of inclination, as well as the shape of the contours themselves.
As for the guides. There are seven of them in FontCreator: WinDescent, BaseLine, x-Height, CapHeight, WinAscent and two more vertical ones without a name.
BaseLine- reference reference line on which "costs" font.
CapHeight- determines the height of capital letters.
X-Height- determines the height of lowercase letters. The exception is lowercase letters of handwritten fonts, which have at the top "tail". The height of such symbols is determined by the line CapHeight.
Lines WinDescent And WinAscent serve to limit characters that have additional elements, for example, a dash in the short “I” or a tail in “Ш” or “р”.
Unnamed vertical lines determine the width of the character. It is different for each symbol.
We may not even suspect it, but all these lines are taken into account by text editors, thanks to which the letters in the text do not overlap each other, are not located one above the other, but stand straight, like drilled soldiers on a parade.
Create your own handwritten font
Take a regular sheet of white A4 paper and write on it in a row all the letters (lowercase and uppercase), as well as all the symbols that you intend to use when printing. It is best to write with a black gel pen so that the characters on the sheet are clear and stand out well. Next, scan the sheet into an image format JPEG or PNG. If you have a device that supports stylus handwriting, use it.
Select the symbol in the image and copy the area to the clipboard. Next, go to FontCreator, find the same symbol in the table of cells, double-click it in the editor, select it and press the Delete button, and in its place paste our selected area of the image (in the menu Edit -> Paste) .
The program recognizes the picture and converts it into an editable outline. Now all that remains is to scale the outline so that its top coincides with the line x-Height, if it is a lowercase letter and with CapHeight, if it is a capital letter. Snap to line BaseLine is done automatically. "Tails" letters "R", "y", "V", "b" tie to WinDescent or WinAscent respectively.
To avoid any overlaps and ensure that the handwritten font you created looks natural, drag the right vertical guide to the far right point of the scaled symbol.
We replace all the characters you need in exactly the same way. The work may seem long and tedious, but the result is worth the effort. After all the characters have been replaced, we export the project to the desired font format and install it into the system.
The program used in the example High-Logic FontCreator is the best tool for creating and editing fonts. Unfortunately, it's paid and when working in trial mode, does not allow you to export projects to font formats ready for installation. But whoever seeks always finds. We believe that finding on the Internet, although not the latest, but a completely working version, will not be difficult for you.
Graphic editor FontLab Studio, which can then be downloaded for free via a direct link, is real professional font editor, which is used in their work by developers from global companies Adobe, Apple, IBM, Microsoft, Monotype, Bitstream and many others.
Program for working with fonts FontLab Studio has all the necessary capabilities to create any type of highly artistic and high-tech. High-quality fonts created in the FontLab Studio program can be seen in the best publications in the world and on the most popular Internet sites. 
Most design studios and printing houses use fonts produced by the FontLabStudio program. Not surprising, because the program, which you can download for free in this post, supports OpeneType, TrueType, ASCII/Unix Type and many other types of fonts, allows you to import and export vector fonts in AI and UZYB formats, as well as in TIFF and BMP.
A professional program for working with fonts, FontLab Studio has its own viewer and powerful ready-made fonts, there are options for a large number of tools and filters, the editor program supports various encodings (including Unicode) and many other features.
FontLab Studio 5 has been significantly improved compared to previous versions and is now aimed at printers, professional designers, type artists and graphic design studios.
Professionals will appreciate the huge selection of FontLab Studio functions for creating, processing and modifying fonts of various categories, support for generating Windows Type 1 and OpenType PS and Arabic and Hebrew characters. Excellent drawing tools, batch character transformation, encoding templates, and more than 200 levels of undo and redo actions have been implemented.
Download archive with FontLab Studio 5.0.4.2741 By
Much has been written about type design, especially about the history of its creation. We have read about many techniques for creating fonts. But where, exactly, should we start? If you are a designer or illustrator and this discipline is new to you, then where should you start?
We found useful information that we collected from many sources and decided to put it all together.
1. Start with a brief
Creating a font is a long and painstaking job, so it is very important to have a clear understanding of what this font should be.
Developing a brief will certainly require research and thought. How will your font be used: will it be needed for a specific project or for personal use? Is there a problem that your font would solve? Will your font fit into an array of similar designs? What makes it unique?
There are many options. Fonts can be created, for example, specifically for academic texts or for posters. Only when you know how your font can be used, then you are ready to start designing.
2. Fundamental choice
There are a number of decisions to keep in mind. Will it be a sans serif or sans serif? Will it be handwritten text based or more geometric? Will the font be designed for text and suitable for long documents? Or maybe it will display text in a creative style and look better in a larger size?
Clue: It is assumed that the design of sans serif fonts is more difficult for beginners, since the capabilities of such fonts are more specific.
3. Pitfalls in the early stages
There are several pitfalls:
- You may decide to start by computerizing handwriting, which can be a useful practice exercise. But because handwriting is so individual, your font may not have much success due to its specificity.
- You should not use existing fonts as a basis. By slightly reworking a font that is already familiar to everyone, you will not create a better font and will not develop your skills.
4. Use your hands
There is a lot of material on how to draw fonts using computer programs, but we strongly recommend that you draw it by hand first. Trying to do this on a computer will make your job much more difficult.
Try to create beautiful shapes of the first few letters on paper, and only then start computer work. Subsequent letters can then be designed based on the existing shapes, according to key features.
Clue: By hand you can usually draw smoother, more precise curves. To make it more convenient, do not be afraid to rotate the sheet of paper the way you need.
5. What characters to start with
Creating specific characters first can help you set the style of your font. Well, then these symbols will be used as guides. Typically, the “control characters,” as they are called, in Latin are n and o, and capital letters are H and O. The word adhension is often used to help test the basic proportions of the font (but some write this word as adhencion because the letter s can be very insidious).
6. Transfer the font to your computer
There are many ways to transfer a drawing to a computer. Some recommend tracing programs, but many prefer to do this work manually so they have full control over the points and shapes.
Many programs need a clear and vibrant design, so once you like your font, trace it with a fine pen and fill in the shapes with a marker.
Clue: If you processed the drawn font as described above, then you can simply take a photo of the drawing and work with it.
7. Program selection
Many designers like to use Adobe Illustrator. It's great for drawing individual shapes and experimenting. But later it becomes obvious that it is not suitable for creating fonts. You will want to work with a program that allows you to work with letter spacing and word creation.
An excellent program is FontLab Studio, but new software such as Glyphs and Robofont are gaining more and more popularity. These programs aren't cheap, but Glyghs has a "mini" version in the Mac App Store with some missing features, which isn't great because those features are important for beginners.
8. Using programs
Don't forget to position the extreme points of the letter shapes (top, bottom, right, left) to better control the process.
9. Words
When you have finished all the work on smoothing out the shapes, look at how it looks in full text. Make it a goal to analyze how the font looks in a line, paragraph, and so on. And don't wait until you've done the entire alphabet.
One of the most popular font design programs. Available on Windows and Mac.
The program is available on Windows, has an intuitive interface and is perfect for beginners.
Another powerful font editor from FontLab that allows you to create new fonts or modify existing ones. Available on Windows and Mac.
This program works on Windows, Mac, Unix/Linux and has been translated into many languages. It also allows you to create new fonts and edit existing ones.
OpenType font editor, available on Windows and Mac OS X. Quite simple and contains a sufficient number of functions.
Another free tool with which you can create dot fonts.
A free trial ($9 per font download) online tool that lets you create fonts from handwritten text.
Another online tool (also almost $10 to download) that lets you create a font from handwritten text.
A free and fairly powerful font editor. Great for beginners and those who don't want to spend money on buying software.
This app is available on iPad and Windows 8. It allows you to create a font from a sketch and edit existing fonts.
Free tool for a limited time. With it you can create fonts and download them.
A free online tool that allows you to create TTF and OTF fonts from handwritten text.
There is a free and premium version. The program runs on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and BSD.