Type design apps/software for young people

Maurice Meilleur
Maurice Meilleur Posts: 60
in Type Education

Passing on a question from a friend: does anyone know of any apps/programs for youngsters to make fonts? The suggested analog was TinkerCAD, but for type design. I’ve suggested Rob Meeks’s FontStruct, but maybe other folks have good suggestions?

Comments

  • Dave Crossland
    Dave Crossland Posts: 1,550
    iPad fontself?
  • Carl Enlund
    Carl Enlund Posts: 12
    FontBob. I'm building it for new designers. I've used it in design workshops and while guest teaching at design schools in Stockholm. Always open to feedback.
  • dascaluflorin
    dascaluflorin Posts: 5
    Hi, Maurice.

    Some of the ones I tried:
    - (Paid) FontSelf - you design in Illustrator (or Photoshop and apparently there's an iPad version, too) and just drag and drop the glyphs into the FontSelf panel. Haven't tried it in a while and I'm not sure what new functions they added, but IIRC there was a button that would open a new document with glyph metrics boxes. Don't remember if there's a way to set the x-height, cap height, descender, UPM, etc., tho. I'm mentioning it because your friend might find the pen tool in Illustrator more familiar than the one in other softwares.
    - (Free) FontForge - there's a lot it can do, but the UI isn't really the best.
    - (Free)     Counterpunch Editor - IIRC Yanone created it. Worth a try.
    - (Free) Fontra - I believe you can either self host it or download and install it locally? Might be wrong, tho. TBH, haven't used this one (yet), but I've seen a lot of (positive) discussions about it and seems to be getting improvements pretty often.
    - (Free) FontBob - haven't played too much with it and honestly there were a few things I found confusing. But still, seems pretty powerful.

    Hope these help.
  • SCarewe
    SCarewe Posts: 54
    What age are we talking about for youngsters?

    Fontself is great. It also allows you to draw by hand on the iPad with different brushes and it converts the strokes to font outlines. The app is very limited in terms of type design technicalities, but to get your hands into letterforms and generating functional fonts, it's a great place to start.

    If you're talking about students getting into type design for the first time, Fontra is probably a good way to go. Mostly because it's free and browser-based, so anyone with a computer can access it.

    Glyphs Mini is paid (50€), but is probably the best way to get familiar with industry-standard font software. The Glyphs team also offer educational licences for the full Glyphs app.
  • Maurice Meilleur
    Maurice Meilleur Posts: 60
    Thanks, everyone—I think Glyphs and Fontra would be too much for the audience in question, but I'll ask for specifics. The website for the reference I was given, TinkerCAD, shows learners in their tweens.
  • John Butler
    John Butler Posts: 356
    FontLab’s TypeTool is $49, close to the 50 € Glyphs Mini but without the macOS requirement.
  • Steven Liu
    Steven Liu Posts: 5
    My first font design app is fontforge, too old fashsioned though, it forces me to read its docs and understand basic knowledge about font metrics, rendering, OpenType features etc.
  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 3,140
    I would say that most of these tools are clearly not great for tweens (8–12). My (then) 10-year-old kid joined the first two days (out of three) of one of my intro type design workshops, and I think the hardest thing for them was wrestling with the actual drawing elements of the tool.

    Honestly, my main piece of advice would be to figure out if there is an easy-to-use Bézier drawing tool, and have them learn that first. Then move on to a font editor. The problem is, font editors are in general aimed at people who already know a vector drawing tool.

    That said, if one must proceed now....

    If they are Mac based, Glyphs Mini is probably the easiest of the lot. That does not mean I think Glyphs Mini (or TypeTool or FontForge!) are easy and straightforward enough. FontBob has some really awful choices that make it clunky and counterintuitive IMO, so I can’t recommend it. Fontra and CounterPunch are really intended to be pro tools, and especially CounterPunch is very early yet.
  • Carl Enlund
    Carl Enlund Posts: 12
    Thomas Phinney said:
     FontBob has some really awful choices that make it clunky and counterintuitive IMO, so I can’t recommend it. 

    Haha let me hear!

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