Hello from me

Daniel Bumbalov
Daniel Bumbalov Posts: 6
in Introductions
I am a great enthusiast who lives in a country using the Cyrillic alphabet. I've always wanted more of the good Latin fonts to support Cyrillic as well - I love both serif and sans serif fonts. For example, I like Gill Sans MT, but as you may know, it doesn't support Cyrillic. I don't know when but a few years ago, Microsoft released the downloadable Gill Sans Nova typeface, which finally supported Cyrillic. But its Cyrillic is awful, really bad. It looks so generic and misses the originality and character of the Latin letters. So I thought: "I could have done it better!" and that's when I decided to learn more about font making. Now I know many things on theory, but I don't know where and how to get some practice. I could use some help. How did you start font making? What software did you use, and where did you learn how to use it? And most importantly - how do you construct letters, for example, letters of sans serif fonts?
-- My biggest dream is to make more fonts usable in countries using the Cyrillic - I want to see great modern typography in my home country and not whatever there is preinstalled on the advertisers' computers!
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Comments

  • Jasper de Waard
    Jasper de Waard Posts: 641
    Welcome!

    I would start with Glyphsapp, try the free trial for 30(?) days and see how you like it. It has a clear user manual, many great tutorials, and is just an overall intuitive application to use. I would say the software is the easy part, though.

    Then, just start messing about. Try to draw some letters, baring in mind what theoretical knowledge you have, and post the results here for feedback. A couple years later, you might have made a very nice Cyrillic!


  • Daniel Bumbalov
    Daniel Bumbalov Posts: 6
    Jasper de Waard said:
    Welcome!

    I would start with Glyphsapp, try the free trial for 30(?) days and see how you like it. It has a clear user manual, many great tutorials, and is just an overall intuitive application to use. I would say the software is the easy part, though.

    Then, just start messing about. Try to draw some letters, baring in mind what theoretical knowledge you have, and post the results here for feedback. A couple years later, you might have made a very nice Cyrillic!


    My computer is on Windows, though, any good alternative?
  • Mike Wenzloff
    Mike Wenzloff Posts: 106
    Using Windows, it's hard to beat FontCreator by HighLogic.
  • Ray Larabie
    Ray Larabie Posts: 1,435
    I think FontCreator is the best option for beginners on Windows. The interface is very intuitive and it includes a testing feature to help you identify and fix problems.
  • Igor Freiberger
    Igor Freiberger Posts: 279
    edited February 2020
    FontLab 7 runs both on macOS and Windows. During the 30 days trial period you can save and export fonts with no limitations.

    To add new glyphs, FL offers the Add Glyphs dialog, where you can add the whole Unicode plus custom glyphs. As a sample, I made a stripped-dow and raw "Gill Something" with all the (empty) Cyrillic glyphs already added. Of course, you must check how each font license handles modifications.

    Attached: the Fonts > Add Glyphs menu and the Add Glyphs dialog, plus the font.
  • Ariq Syauqi
    Ariq Syauqi Posts: 13
    I recommend you to watch Charles Nix's videos on LinkedIn Learning (Glyphs App essential training etc). As a beginner, it helped me a lot! *at least gave me the insight how actually the experts do it.

    By the way, I moved from Windows to Mac just for Glyphs App, and it's really worth it for me.

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