Drawing masters

Hello everyone, 

When you are drawing your glyphs in your font software, do you only draw one master at the time, or do you draw all of the masters? For example, when you've drawn your 'a', will you then move on to the other master to draw the 'a' there, as well?

—Mads 

Comments

  • It can be simpler/cleaner to draw one master at a time like Mark described. To mention a benefit of drawing multiple masters for one character at a time is that if you want to use the RMX tools (like Scaler and Tuner), then at least two masters of different weights are required to be able to take advantage of its ability to "tweak" the character shape quickly (which you can refine further if needed).
  • Thank you everyone for your input.
  • Oh, and what weight do you start with? I have a tendency to start with the lightest weight.
  • It depends on the design. Usually, it’s the regular weight or something close to that, but sometimes it’s a bolder weight if that's where the concept started. Once in a while, I drop the master I drew first and it ends up being an interpolated weight.
  • I used to do a Regular first. Now I often do a few glyphs in a regular weight to get the “feel” of it, and then switch to doing the lightest and the boldest (or something quite heavy*), and interpolating the regular.

    * Whether I immediately have the heaviest weight depends on whether I can do that without optical adjustments. Sometimes the boldest that is necessary for interpolations needs adjustment in the heaviest weight, for example with more monoline designs. In such cases, an intermediate master may be needed, at least for some glyphs. I might avoid that complication at first by not immediately going as bold as I want to... at least not for the first short while.
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