Draw & Digitize Workshop

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chaanes
chaanes Posts: 2
edited September 2023 in Type Education
Draw & Digitize!

Teacher: Christopher Haanes


Time: Thursdays from 28th September to 19th October, 19:30–21:00 CET

Zoom sessions, using Glyphs (Mac only)
Cost: 142 Euros

Open for anyone wanting to learn about type design

Register from link below, payment using PayPal
Link for more workshop info: https://christopherhaanes.com/draw-digitize/

About this workshop:
Calligraphy, lettering, typography. Three separate disciplines? No. The same? No. Overlapping? Yes.

After teaching drawn type design and typography for graphic designers, as well as drawing letters for over thirty years, I have finally taken the step into the world of digital typography, fulfilling an old dream of mine. In this workshop you will learn the basics of putting the written letter on to your keyboard, and making your own typeface. We will draw letters with a pencil, looking at typographic detailing vs underlying form.  A few simple drawings will be used as a starting point from which to make a typeface.



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Comments

  • Nick Shinn
    Nick Shinn Posts: 2,282
    Do you use autotrace at all, or place a scan in a lower layer and draw bezier paths over that image?
  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 3,015
    The lettering is lovely!

    Nonetheless, there are several missing points at extrema in the digitization of that cap R. Also a couple of choices on the inside of the leg which go against the dogma I learned early on—though perhaps not such a big deal.
  • Enrico Sogari
    Enrico Sogari Posts: 47
    @Thomas Phinney Serious: can you share your own version and show me/us how to do it properly? That would be interesting. Thanks
  • George Thomas
    George Thomas Posts: 655
    The outline isn't sitting on the baseline and it overshoots the cap height. Not good.
  • Enrico Sogari
    Enrico Sogari Posts: 47
    George Thomas said:
    The outline isn't sitting on the baseline and it overshoots the cap height. Not good.
    Yeah I can see that too.

  • k.l.
    k.l. Posts: 109
    There do not need to be points at extrema if there is no intention to hint them in which case rasterizers just do not care.
  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,434
    Which rasterisers?  :)

    I would be cautious about TrueType renderers calculating bounding boxes and sidebearing distances when extrema lack on-curve points. As recently as the ISO OFF meeting last month, there was discussion among participants about differences in the way renderers perform such calculations if extrema on-curve points are missing. There is a general agreement that calculations should be based on the outline and not on off-curve point positions, but no confidence that all renderers do that.
  • k.l.
    k.l. Posts: 109
    All I encountered so far. Any example of an exception? Rest is an interesting story.

    This entire discussion is off topic.
  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 3,015
    k.l. said:
    There do not need to be points at extrema if there is no intention to hint them in which case rasterizers just do not care.
    You might be right—but I was in the same discussion as John last month, and had previously heard that same info from other sources at Adobe in the misty past.

    It isn’t SOLELY about rasterizers, either: sometimes glyph bounding boxes matter to graphics programs or other apps... which may or may not query a rasterizer, versus just using the outlines directly, and trying to measure things themselves.  :neutral:
  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 3,015
    I am either going to find a short publicly-available video that covers point placement, or create one this weekend and post it on YouTube. It just happens that I have need of it at this exact moment and was already debating doing it.

    I have a standard lecture on the topic that I created for teaching Crafting Type workshops, and have taught countless times. I could record that, plus going through a few glyphs and fixing them.

    If @chaanes had any interest in contributing his “R” to this effort I would gladly use it. Most of my other examples will be… less gorgeous, for sure.

    Glyphs app info on point placement is pretty good, actually. See here: https://glyphsapp.com/learn/drawing-good-paths
  • k.l.
    k.l. Posts: 109
    That would be another discussion.
  • Simon Cozens
    Simon Cozens Posts: 793
    John Hudson said:
    Which rasterisers?  :)

    I would be cautious about TrueType renderers calculating bounding boxes and sidebearing distances when extrema lack on-curve points. As recently as the ISO OFF meeting last month, there was discussion among participants about differences in the way renderers perform such calculations if extrema on-curve points are missing. There is a general agreement that calculations should be based on the outline and not on off-curve point positions, but no confidence that all renderers do that.
    In which case there's a good argument that it's the responsibility of the font compiler to ensure that extrema are added.
  • chaanes
    chaanes Posts: 2
    Thank you for the input, people. This R is an early version, so it has glitches, i.e. work in progress. I can contribute this R to your video, Thomas Phinney. Let’s PM about it. Cheers

  • Enrico Sogari
    Enrico Sogari Posts: 47
    Lovely ending.
  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,434
    In which case there's a good argument that it's the responsibility of the font compiler to ensure that extrema are added.
    Depending how curves are configured and how existing points are placed, algorithmically adding extrema points can cause kinks or other problems. Much better for the human font maker to take control of the process, even if this also involves making selective use of automation where the results can be interrogated.

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