Font engineers are the people who can make fonts work so type designers don’t have to. At the simplest this might just be working out vertical metrics and font family naming.
Coding and testing OpenType features can also be the work of a font engineer. As you get into the world of non-Latin languages with lots of OpenType programming font engineering can get pretty complicated.
Some font engineers handle programming for type designers. A lot of redundant work in type design can be automated with Python programming. This gets back into the non-Latin and OpenType world, where people are writing Python code that generates OpenType code.
Font engineers also handle final font testing. After a typeface is finished someone has to make sure that it works across Mac, Windows, Adobe Apps, and web browsers. Depending on how thorough one wants to be this is a lot of work and some type designers prefer to outsource it.
Thank you James so much. this can get quite expensive too right ? how is the price determined? per work? Per hour ?
thanks again.
The price, as a few other details, might vary from engineer to engineer and work to work. As for getting quite expensive, well, that would depend on how much work you'd need the engineer to do and how specialised that work is.
if Hinting is needed for the project, I think would fall under the Font Engineering bracket, as many type designers, either do not have the expertise or the time to do Hinting work
Yeah, learning it's insanely techy at times... and at a bit of an impasse... I've drawn all my glyphs, happy with the spacing, kerning, metrics, contours... but would like to take it across the finish line and use the typeface for professional projects and on the web.
I believe the next steps are:
Hinting: optimizing for screen at small sizes
OpenType: writing features (found this resource) and table info (clueless here?)
Formats: OTF + WOFF
Any how-to resources for the above would be greatly appreciated!
I see ok. With regards to hinting, you should determine if Hinting is needed. If its a Display face for example, intended for use at larger sizes, perhaps no hinting is needed. A text face might need hinting. For autohinting you can use TTFAutohint. For greater control of Hinting, VTT from Microsoft also has a built in Autohinter and an interface to edit the hinting. Be aware however that VTT has a pretty steep learning curve. for both ttfautohint and VTT autohinting, proofing the hinted results is strongly recommended.
there is a lot of information out there on OpenType, the Glyphs website has good deal of info
I am sure others more familiar with the Robofont workflow will comment.
These are both very helpful resources. I didn't think to check another font design app for info, and it looks like Glyphs does a very good job with "how-to" content.
Google Fonts has been supporting the development of the Font Bakery project for a few years, along with other contributing foundries, and other tools for font engineering tasks.
I'm going to learn the engineering process with this first typeface to be better informed to work with freelance engineers in the future. Appreciate the advice.
Comments
Coding and testing OpenType features can also be the work of a font engineer. As you get into the world of non-Latin languages with lots of OpenType programming font engineering can get pretty complicated.
Some font engineers handle programming for type designers. A lot of redundant work in type design can be automated with Python programming. This gets back into the non-Latin and OpenType world, where people are writing Python code that generates OpenType code.
Font engineers also handle final font testing. After a typeface is finished someone has to make sure that it works across Mac, Windows, Adobe Apps, and web browsers. Depending on how thorough one wants to be this is a lot of work and some type designers prefer to outsource it.
this can get quite expensive too right ?
how is the price determined?
per work? Per hour ?
thanks again.
Do you have any tips, resources or references you can share for outsourcing this process?
As for getting quite expensive, well, that would depend on how much work you'd need the engineer to do and how specialised that work is.
I believe the next steps are:
- Hinting: optimizing for screen at small sizes
- OpenType: writing features (found this resource) and table info (clueless here?)
- Formats: OTF + WOFF
Any how-to resources for the above would be greatly appreciated!there is a lot of information out there on OpenType, the Glyphs website has good deal of info
I am sure others more familiar with the Robofont workflow will comment.
These are both very helpful resources. I didn't think to check another font design app for info, and it looks like Glyphs does a very good job with "how-to" content.
Thanks again.
Thanks @DanRhatigan! This was my only resource but great to call out again.
I'm aware of http://www.alphabet-type.com and https://www.daltonmaag.com offering font engineering services, and there are many freelancers offering such services too.
I'm going to learn the engineering process with this first typeface to be better informed to work with freelance engineers in the future. Appreciate the advice.