Guido Ferreyra guidoferreyra

Getting started in Type Design (and possible next steps)

So, you’re interested in type design, but you are still figuring out how & where to start or get to the next step. This post is a non-exhaustive attempt to share an overview of how you might learn some basics, how you can get started with font editing software, and where you might consider growing your skills after that. It reflects my bias and (some of) my personal experience, and it completely skips important topics like formal education, calligraphy and sketching, bezier drawing tips, and more.

This started as an email listing my favorite RoboFont extensions, and then I thought that it would be worth sharing publicly, and then I added more and it turned into a bigger post. In the future, I hope to bring it onto a proper blog as a collection of separate, more-focused topics.

General learning

Useful Internet resources

http://stackoverflow.com/a/30493366/188963

Other answers do mention that argparse is the way to go for new Python, but do not give usage examples. For completeness, here is a short summary of how to use argparse:

1) Initialize

import argparse

# Instantiate the parser

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description='Optional app description')

	w = h = 1000
	newPage(w,h)

	fill(0)
	rect(0,0,w,h)

	# -------- change these -------- #
	pixelSize = 7

	copy = "Testing"

	'''
	Robofont startup script to find out which kerning group
	the selected glyph belongs to.
	'''

	import AppKit
	from mojo.UI import CurrentFontWindow
	from mojo.events import addObserver
	from mojo.roboFont import CurrentFont

	import os
	import shutil
	from mojo.events import addObserver

	"""
	Goal: Create a UFOZ automatically when a UFO is saved.

	Off the top of my head, I can think of a few ways to do this:

	1. Make a copy of the font object, save as UFOZ, discard the

	import smtplib
	# this uses a burner gmail account to send from
	# I use this to email my phone's sms email

	email = '[email protected]'
	text = 'hello sms'
	server = smtplib.SMTP('smtp.gmail.com', 587)
	server.starttls()
	server.login('[email protected]', 'password')
	server.sendmail('Robofont', email, text)

	#!/usr/bin/env python
	# coding: utf-8
	from __future__ import division, print_function

	from math import atan, pi, tan

	# Spit out some mappings for the slant axis to get closer to actual degrees.
	#print(angle,
	# atan(
	# tan(slant * pi / 180) / (slant / angle)


	# ported from http://www.gizma.com/easing/
	# by http://th0ma5w.github.io
	#
	# untested :P


	import math

	linearTween = lambda t, b, c, d : c*t/d + b

	'''draw a range of shapes along a bezier segment'''

	# converted from:
	# http://13thparallel.com/archive/bezier-curves/

	def B1(t): return ttt
	def B2(t): return 3tt*(1-t)
	def B3(t): return 3t(1-t)*(1-t)
	def B4(t): return (1-t)(1-t)(1-t)


	g = CurrentGlyph()

	f = CurrentFont()

	for g in f:

	box = g.box

	if box is None: