Looking for a TT hinting service

Cristóbal Henestrosa

Hello all,

A client is asking me for a custom job. It will be eight fonts (light, regular, semibold, bold ant their italic companions) to be used primarily on screen. Not mobile devices, but more like the ones used in airports for showing departures and arrivals, and probably standard TV screens.

Since I don’t have access to the screens right now I can’t test them by myself, but I am thinking that perhaps I will need TrueType hinting. I don’t know how to do it by myself, and learning it is not in my foreseeable future, so I am looking for someone who wants to do this part of the process. If needed, this service is going to be required at some point of the second half of this year.

The point is that I want to give to the client an estimate of how much TrueType hinting will cost, so it will come as no surprise in case it is required. In this Typophile thread, Adam Twardoch said that “quality hinting as a service comes at roughly US$5–10 per glyph” (15 Jan 2011, 1:02 PM). But I guess it’s better if I receive a more specific answer so I can get a more certain estimate.

I haven’t started with the design of the typefaces yet, but I am pretty sure they will be most like Gandhi Sans: humanist sans serif, 373 characters, 123 of those are composites.

I am including a screenshot of Gandhi Sans, so it can give you a better idea. The composites are marked green.

Thanks in advance.

John Hudson

'quality hinting as a service comes at roughly US$5–10 per glyph'

More like $25–35 per base glyph for top quality, but much depends on the nature of the design and the target environent. You should get detailed specs for the screens where the fonts will be used, and also confirm what software drives the display and what rendering/antialiasing model is used. If possible, get a size range in pixels per em at which the fonts will be displayed. This information will determine the level and kind of hinting you will need.

Deleted Account

"... probably standard TV screens."

I'd wonder what this means (even bore designing a letter), and also ask what operating system, and version of which truetype rasterizer is going to scale and render it, and then I'd want to know whether the point structures of the four weights of each posture are going to have matching points, what font format you planned to deliver to the hinting in and, of course, how much they've got.

Jason Campbell

^ What David said.
Without knowing what rasterizer is involved, and even if the aspect ratio is square, I wouldn't even want to quote on it. I'm afraid there's too many variables to get a general number in this field, you really need a detailed quote.

Cristóbal Henestrosa

Hi all. Thanks for all your comments and insight. Really appreciate them. Sadly, I don’t have access to that information right now (I am afraid even the client ignores what screens he is going to use at this point). So I guess I can use the $25–35 range that John said so the client can have a vague idea for now. I’ll tell him that I can’t be more specific if I don’t have more details. If this job is finally required, I’ll let you know. Thanks!