Tag Archives: font design

Creating OpenType Fonts: Simplified

Skilled Workman Posted on by

OpenType Simplified In two words, it’s confusing. FontLab has good, professional tools for developing OpenType fonts—but it is certainly not simple or easy. Fontographer really does not deal well with OpenType at all. Having said that, if you have a feature file, you can use it in Fontographer 5.1. You link to it in the font info dialog box on the Encoding page. Fontographer will use that feature file to build your OpenType font when you generate … Continue reading →

Fontographer: Practical Font Design for Graphic Designers

Skilled Workman Posted on by

    Why do you want to use Fontographer? For the fun of it! When I received the opportunity to go back to my roots, and see what the new Fontographer was like, I was a little concerned. I had just spent nine years painfully teaching myself to letterspace by hand, to write OpenType features, and to become accustomed to the tool set of FontLab. Don’t get me wrong, FontLab is a great program and I am … Continue reading →

The key role of Fontographer in the font revolution

Skilled Workman Posted on by

An excerpt from my newest book, due out in late fall of 2011… The world of font design has radically changed in the digital world of graphic design. We no longer make huge careful drawings, reduced to perfection, and exquisitely carved out of metal or exposed onto film. We make mathematically precise, infinitely editable, completely resizable shapes output as code. The software that brought about that change is the focus of my new book: Practical FontDesign for … Continue reading →

1st public release: Practical Font Design For Graphic Designers: Fontographer 5.1

Skilled Workman Posted on by

This is a special limited time offer until October 1, 2011 It is a low-priced, comb-bound 6×9 proofing release. I am selling the downloadable PDF for only $2.99 and the printed book for only $11.95. My hope is that you will read it and give me comments and feedback (and even typos) so I can make the full release for $9.99 and $19.95 in October. here’s the back cover copy: Why do you want to use Fontographer? … Continue reading →

1st Proof: Fontographer: Practical Font Design For Graphic Designers

Skilled Workman Posted on by

This is the new book on Fontographer 5.1. It’s has been great fun to go back to my roots, as it were and relearn the program that started me in font design. Fontographer is the app that started graphic design on the computer. It preceded Illustrator by over a year. It was the core that was developed into FreeHand. This is digital drawing that is fun again! As I got back into the application something remarkable happened. … Continue reading →

The new paradigm of free publishing: free whitepaper

Skilled Workman Posted on by

Things have really changed—free whitepaper. Above is a link to a free PDF about how to publish your book for free in print, downloadable PDF, ePUB on iBooks and NookBooks, Kindle book, and various ebook formats. Included are marketing materials and intensive marketing—all for free. This is the new paradigm of on-demand publishing What has happened with few people noticing is that books have become a creative effort for fine artists and authors of all types. Not … Continue reading →

My new release on Kindle: Practical Font Design: Building a set of book design font families eBook: David Bergsland: Kindle Store

Skilled Workman Posted on by

Amazon.com: Practical Font Design: Building a set of book design font families eBook: David Bergsland: Kindle Store. My second font design book is up on Kindle now…

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A major new release at Hackberry Font Foundry

Skilled Workman Posted on by

Announcing this all over You may have seen this already, but it is a major piece of work and probably my most mature and sophisticated set of font designs yet. I finally broke down and spaced them for body copy—so they will work well at text sizes [from 9-point to 12-point] without the need to fiddle with the spacing. The design is a contemporary take on oldstyle serif typefaces using Jenson as the mask. The roots of … Continue reading →

Silly me! Found a new shortcut in FontLab

Skilled Workman Posted on by

It really helps production efficiency and speed. Great find! Command+Arrow Key on selected pieces moves 100 units This shows my ignorance of things like this, but I just discovered a great shortcut built into FontLab. As I have mentioned many times, moving selections right or left is a constant thing—especially while building composite glyphs and letterspacing a new font. One of my irritations over the years has been the internal debate over whether it is more efficient … Continue reading →