Floundering at font founderying

March 11, 2009 9:38 AM

How do I turn my Illustrator-drawn custom font into a real computer font I can use on Mac and Windows (Adobe) software?

We have a logo that a designer made for us long ago but shortly before escaping to another dimension. Unfo, folks around here like to have stuff we create "match" the logo. I've recreated an entire alphabet and common symbols (!@#$%^&*()) in Illustrator based on two fonts (Arial MT and Antennae) but I'm getting tired of assembling words in Illustrator and copying that into Photoshop ... so now I'm trying to pick what I think is called a "font foundry" from the scads of software downloads in Google so that I can export a custom font for type tool use in Photoshop and Illustrator.

Assuming that I'm capable, what software would you recommend for my task? Reasons why?

(Please forgive me for butchering type terminology.)

posted by metajc to media & arts (4 comments total)

Fontforge is free.

There was also a "free handwriting font creation" thingy on the Blue a while back, I used their template in Illustrator to drop in letters and had a font made from that. Basically, use their PDF form, but open it in Illustrator and place the letters there rather than writing them in as they ask. Probably won't be a very good rendition of the font though.
posted by caution live frogs at 9:44 AM on March 11

Free, open-source, very powerful, difficult learning curve, requires Cygwin: FontForge.

Expensive, easier learning curve, amazing: FontLab Studio.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 9:46 AM on March 11

I was going to suggest Fontographer, but it looks like it's made by the same folks as FontLab Studio.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 12:21 PM on March 11

Well, technically the Fontlab people bought Fontographer, for years it was a Macromedia product.

Making a font is hard. Most of the work comes after you've got all the letters drawn. Spacing everything can be a bitch.

Fontographer or Fontlab are your best choices, but something like Fontstruct is fun, and makes it really easy. It's best for pixel-based fonts, though.
posted by kpmcguire at 7:09 PM on March 11