How to make a handwritten font?

Typofactory

Hello,

I want to make my own handwriting font for personal use, but I don't want it to be low quality (Calligraphr, etc). I use Glyphs for type design, does anyone know how I would make the font? I had the basic idea of just writing down letters and then taking pictures of them to trace over, but that feels like an inefficient way to do that. DOes anyone have any tips?

Yves Michel

I started some handwritten fonts with Calligrapher and then by using Fontlab (or its predecessors Fontographer, Studio 5, etc.) The quality doesn't come from Calligrapher but from the lot of work needed to improve each glyph.
If your letters are detached, it's already a big adventure, but if your letters are connected, expect a little more time!
Goof luck! 

Yves Michel

Sorry! GOOD luck!

Jens Kutilek

FWIW, I wrote about my process designing FF Uberhand in a Quora article.

Cristóbal Henestrosa

Sorry for ther self-promotion, but I do have a Domestika course on that. It uses Illustrator and Fontself, but I’d say it is pretty easy to translate the lessons into Glyphs. Actually, the last lesson is about pseudo-randomization and I used Glyphs for that. 

If finally you decide to enroll it, please use this link, so my commission is higher:

https://www.domestika.org/es/courses/3710-diseno-de-tipografia-digitaliza-tu-propia-letra/henestrosatype

Good luck!

Thomas Phinney

If you are interested in a connected script font in particular, you should also take a look at this tutorial by Laura Worthington. It is an ancient one using FontLab Studio 5, but that isn’t very important; understanding how to design glyphs so they can (relatively!) easily connect smoothly is independent of the particular font editor you are using.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kV-QtSOWapI

Yves Michel

Hi there,
Thomas is absolutely right: I forgot to tell you about Laura Worthington's videos.
I used them to design my connected script "Abecedary" font (available on daFont) with FL Studio 5 and FL6.