Hinting and font rendering

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Comments

  • James Montalbano
    James Montalbano Posts: 101
    edited August 2023
    The lower left leg of the X needs to be move a bit further left. This optical illusion almost always occurs when a thin stroke crosses a heavier one. Add a few points to the thin stroke where it crosses the heavy stroke and move the entire lower leg to the left.


  • DiegoSouza
    DiegoSouza Posts: 60
    again, the capitals, idk, they seem so wrong. 

    Bad proportions ? 

  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 2,896
    Sidebearings are weirdly inconsistent. The HI spacing should not be so much less than the MN spacing. And you could drive a truck between RS or ST.
  • DiegoSouza
    DiegoSouza Posts: 60
    Thomas Phinney said:
    Sidebearings are weirdly inconsistent. The HI spacing should not be so much less than the MN spacing. And you could drive a truck between RS or ST.
    i'm not playing with the side bearings yet
  • Michael Rafailyk
    Michael Rafailyk Posts: 146
    edited August 2023
    Diego, to my eye, the overshots of rounded shapes could be slightly bigger.
    UPD. Oh, sorry, I didn't read that it's about hinting, not about critique.
  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 2,896
    You are approaching this project completely backwards. You want to hint glyphs that you haven’t even started spacing? You have an entire alphabet without having even rudimentary spacing?

    The time to do spacing is when you are designing the glyphs in the first place. It is much harder to judge anything else when the spacing is completely buggered. Certainly spacing should happen before hinting.
  • DiegoSouza
    DiegoSouza Posts: 60
    Michael Rafailyk said:
    Diego, to my eye, the overshots of rounded shapes could be slightly bigger.
    UPD. Oh, sorry, I didn't read that it's about hinting, not about critique.
    Michael Rafailyk said:
    Diego, to my eye, the overshots of rounded shapes could be slightly bigger.
    UPD. Oh, sorry, I didn't read that it's about hinting, not about critique.
    Well, It was about hinting, but asking for help i ended up seeing that my shapes were really bad, after Reading, trying, searching and comparing i suddenly started to see a Lot of problems.

    The hinting was a problem because i found out that fontforge isn't hinting my files at all i even reinstalled but after trying Microsoft hinting software the things completly changed. Now I'm fixing the problems with shapes/proportions.

    So now it's a little bit off everything
  • DiegoSouza
    DiegoSouza Posts: 60
    Thomas Phinney said:
    You are approaching this project completely backwards. You want to hint glyphs that you haven’t even started spacing? You have an entire alphabet without having even rudimentary spacing?

    The time to do spacing is when you are designing the glyphs in the first place. It is much harder to judge anything else when the spacing is completely buggered. Certainly spacing should happen before hinting.
    I didn't even know that. Going to fix that!
  • DiegoSouza
    DiegoSouza Posts: 60
    edited August 2023
    Should i create a New discussion only for critique ?
  • Vasily Draigo
    Vasily Draigo Posts: 46
    Hinting is the last thing in font development, don't rush it.
  • Michael Rafailyk
    Michael Rafailyk Posts: 146
    edited August 2023
    Additionally to what Thomas said.

    When we looking to the text, we see not just the black color but also the white color which is not less important. So the white shape on the left and right around the letter outline (spacing) and inside it (counters), in the context of other letters, affects the perception of the black shape itself.

    That's why your black shape may be good but you may think it's wrong.
    Or you may think it's a hinting issue.
  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 2,896
    Apologies if that came off a bit harsh—spacing is normally integral to the design process. Something most type designers do as they are creating the glyphs. You may still go back and revise the spacing later — that is super common. But it is an iterative process that for many of us starts right as we do the first glyphs. When I do “no” I set sidebearings, deliberately, right then. And revise and update them as I go on.

    Or to put it another way, you are designing the white space as much as the ink. Thinking of it that way is good for your perspective on type design.  :)

    Ah, I see Michael said the same thing, pretty much. Agree 100%.

    Here is an ancient video I did on spacing, btw:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbc_O7bNROs

  • DiegoSouza
    DiegoSouza Posts: 60
    (i delayed this message) finally dear friends karen cheng's book arrived and thanks Thomas, i'm going to finish reading and iterating it before posting any updates again so it might take a while! thanks 

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