User Guide

copy it to the background [Template layer] of “c,” “d” and
other rounded characters and construct them over the
pattern. That will give you a consistency of form that a
calligrapher works for years to achieve in eye and hand
coordination. The same goes for your “l” and all the
ascenders of the lower case alphabet. You must, of course,
keep your stroke widths very similar, as it has all been
written with the same “pen.”
But—don’t be too perfect, or you’ll be making something
more akin to a text typeface. Let every rounded form vary
just a little bit from every other one, let the ascenders lean a
little, but not so much that it is obvious. This is a subtle way
to add life to your font.
Continue building characters until you have enough to write
a word in the Metrics Window and to print out some word-
like gibberish from the Print Sample window. Take the
printed proof and look at it upside down. What’s your first
impression of the weight of the letters? Turn it right side up
and look again. How do the letters look together? Do they
look related in their stroke widths, sizes, leanings? If not, try
to pick out the offending characters and rework them to fit
into the family a bit better. How’s the spacing? Move the
margins in the Metrics Window until you get a pleasant
spacing, particularly in smaller sizes.
Third method, with drawing tablet: You’ll be doing the same
thing as described above, but you’ll have the aid of
Fontographer’s wonderful, automatic, electronic calligraphic
pen. In your hand it looks like the cordless pen of your
drawing tablet, but on screen it draws like a calligraphic pen
or a Chinese brush. If you have any natural or trained
calligraphic talent, you will find a drawing tablet extremely
useful because you can whip out a calligraphic shape with
one swoop of that pen. You will want to experiment a bit at
the outset with the various nib widths and slant variations
available. And you will want to try the calligraphy pen alone,
the pressure pen alone, and the combination of the two. For
imitating western calligraphy you will use the calligraphic
pen with or without the pressure mode. Try it both ways
and see which produces most easily the shapes you have in
mind.
Now here’s one difference that practicing pen
calligraphers will need to curb at the outset. Fontographer
characters are usually made in one continuous outline. So
Fontographer User's Manual
2: Creating New Fonts Page #28