Kind of new to glyphs - had the app for years, never created a font in it! But am a graphic designer with some type knowledge.
I made a display typeface that I would like to convert to a font. Keep going back and forth between how to approach it. I guess my question is how would you do it?
The glyphs consists of 2 layers an “outline layer” and a “fill layer”. The font only has straight lines .
Question 1 - Layer
So the “fill layer” should be a color layer even though it is only black?
Question 2 - re-draw or copy paste?
All letters are drawn precisely in affinity on an isometric grid, but copy paste makes the nodes fit to pixel grid and I want it to be precise. Tried to make a grid from guides in Glyphs and redraw but then again if i flips a component it gets “distorted”. I read that you could turn off pixel alignment somewhere is that what I need to do? Or do I just need to make more dots per em?
Question 3 - Kerning.
Is kerning even possible if the letters need to overlap (se image) any pitfall I should be aware of?
Question 4 - Outline
Is there a way to make Glyphs not to merge two overlapping nodes, so that I can keep individual lines separate (kind of as a master sketch)? I am aware that the lines have to be converted to a shape in the end.
Appreciate any recommendation to point me in the right direction!
Can’t you increase the number of units per em to a value that does fit what you already have?
Never having tried to make a colour font, I don’t know, but I suppose it depends on how glyphs overlap: does the one on the right overlap the one on the left? If so, they would automatically look as your sample does.
However, giving it a quick try by opening Apple Color Emoji and adjusting the right side bearing of a glyph, it looks like left overlaps right:
Yeah I think you are probably right. I also just read something about SVG fonts that you can copy paste SVG’s into the SVG layer, maybe that could be a way to go about it!? Guess I’m am looking for the least time consuming solution, since I have already drawn all the letters. But then again I would like to do it properly the first time if possible!
That’s definitely also pitfall I have to look into. Thank you for making me aware of this! I need to do some tests! Thanks again!
Re. 2: You can put a grid value of 0 into Font Info – Other Settings to disable rounding to coordinates. But if decimal coordinates can be exported to the binary font file depends on the format you use.
Which leads to the question - any purpose in increasing the “dots per em” beyond 1000 if I just use decimal coordinates? ( I know theres good documentation but I just have a bit information overload and going in circles) .
In most cases, having less resolution makes it easier to get consistency. But sometimes very fine details require more precision. Those details are often, as in your case, small rounded corners. You can disable the grid altogether but try increasing the units per em to 2000 or 3000 first. And often it is easier to redraw instead of cleaning up the result from other processes. But you have to try what suites you best.
You can kern color font. There is the problem with overlap. In glyphs, the active glyph is drawn on top of the next glyph but in the finished font, it is always drawn from left to right, so the right glyph is above the left.
Thank you very much for the reply !