How to Make Your Own Font in Just a Few Steps

Learning how to make your one font can be easier than you imagine. You will find several font makers to use online, which don't require being a designer expert to enjoy. The result: a personalized font to be used in Logos, websites, and multiple physical and digital pieces.

If you pay close attention to renowned brands, such as Coke and Apple, the font they use is an important part of their brand visual identity.  It helps to convey the message they want, and it strengthens their image. You can create a unique font, and make your brand stand out as well. 

Why Create a Font

With so many fonts available on the internet to download for free, you may wonder why it is worth understanding how to make your own font. And, there are many reasons for that, starting with being able to have a font no one else in the world has. 

It's a strategy that helps differentiate your brand from others. Besides, you can design the font as you imagined, detail by detail. It's even possible to create a font from your handwriting. Another advantage is that, after creating your font, you may use it several times, in every design piece you wish. 

Uniqueness and originality are factors people take into consideration when choosing to buy from a brand, details such as a font make the difference. It helps to create a memorable visual identity. It also allows you to explore different types of design, innovate, and have a font that suits your needs specifically.

How to Make Your Own Font

Define What the Font Will Be Used For

When it comes to making your own font, before starting to design it, it's important to define the font's main use. For example, if you are going to use it to create a logo or to write articles on a website.

The font's use influences directly on the design choices. If the font is made to be applied to a logo, it may have more details, and be cursive. While, if it's for writing long texts, you need to consider legibility.

It's also necessary to specify if the font will be mostly used for digital pieces or printed ones, the font size you wish it to work best, and the message you want the font to convey. To help you come up with ideas, separate fonts that are an inspiration.  

Select the Type of Font You Wish to Create

Some characteristics put fonts in different categories, knowing those aspects helps understand the type of font you wish to make.

• Serif Fonts: these types of fonts are characterized by the tapers or feet on the letters that are called serifs. Times New Roman is one of the most popular serif fonts in the world, highly used in formal publications. 
• Sans Serif Fonts: they don't have serifs, as the name suggests. One example is the Arial font, which is used worldwide in digital and print publications. 
• Brush/Caligraphy Fonts: these fonts imitate human handwriting. It seems that they were written with a pen or a paintbrush. Many of them are cursive, an example is Lucida Handwriting font. 
• Black Letter Fonts: they are ornated, usually with a medieval or gothic style. The Old English font is an example.  

Choose a Font Creation Software

After defining the use and type of font you wish to create, it's time to choose the software you will use to design it. Fortunately, you can find many platforms online that enable you to create a font with just a few steps, without even needing to install any app on your computer. They even allow you to transform your handwriting into a font. 

Start Designing

Once you choose the font creation software, you need to put your ideas to work. You may start designing the font with a sketch you made on paper or uploading a font you will use as a base to create yours. You will need to define some aspects of the font, so it's helpful to know the terminology used:

• Glyph: it refers to each character in a font.
• Baseline: it's the invisible line where every font character sits. 
• Ascender line: the invisible line where ascenders begin.
• Ascender height: the maximum height the ascenders on lowercase letters reach.
• Descender depth: the maximum depth the lowercase letters reach below the baseline.
• Stem: main vertical stroke of a letter.
• Bowl: closed rounded part of letters, like "o" and "d". 

Apply Your Font

After you finish designing your font, make tests with it to know if the font will work for the purpose you have in mind. If you are going to use it on a logo or make it the official font to write titles and other things related to your brand, create a manual on how to use it. This way, you ensure your brand's visual identity will be harmonic, coherent, and consistent.

4 Main Characteristics a  Good Font Should Have

Knowing how to make your font is the beginning, you also need to make the font you create meet some fundamental criteria: 

1. Legibility

A good font must be legible, which means people should be able to recognize each letter without any problem. The letterforms should be clear and distinct. 

2. Readability

Does your font corroborate for a smooth reading? That's very important to guarantee a good user experience and make sure people will be able to understand everything that's written with your font. Pay attention to the font details, so they don't make it harder to read a text. 

3. Consistency

All the letterforms must be harmonic among them as if they match each other. This makes the font coherent, and prettier. Consistency should be considered as well when choosing other design elements to apply together with the font. 

4. Style

Making your own font allows you to explore your creativity and create something unique. Therefore, you should enjoy that to make letterforms that express the singularity of your brand and its personality. 

5 Best Font Creation Software

1. FontForge

FontForge is a free software that enables you to create and modify fonts. You can personalize your font as you wish by making each glyph. It offers several edition tools and you can upload sketches to use as a base for your design. 

2. Birdfont

Enjoy the several edition tools Birdfont offers to design different types of fonts. You can use variable glyph properties, create vector graphics, and export TTF, OTF, and SVG fonts. The app is free too. 

3. Glyphr

Glyphr was developed to offer a simple and easy-to-use font maker software that doesn't require being a design expert to know how to make your own font.  It's free, you can use it online and count on multiple tools to customize each glyph.  

4. Calligraphr

The Calligraphr allows you to create a font using your handwriting. You just need to upload an image with your handwriting, and you can modify the details if you wish. After making your font, you can save it in standard font files, like TTF or OTF. 

5. FontLab

With FontLab, you can create several types of fonts and edit OpenType fonts too. Make your font available for different alphabets, including Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, and Chinese. You can also enjoy the font converter tool to save fonts in OTF and TTF. 

Enjoy Your Font

Now that you have learned how to make your own font, test your ideas, innovate with unique design, and create a font that matches your brand identity. Try the font makers to discover the one you like most, and don't forget to make sure your font is legible and easy to read. You will see that a personalized font will add a special touch to your brand.