Custom glyph character behaviors

Hello all,

New glyph user here. I’m a clothing designer that designed a made up language that I use in a lot of my designs. It is based entirely on the english alphabet. Up until now I was individually photoshopping each and every letter of the words I wanted to use. Then I found out about Glyphs! I have been going through my alphabet and converting each letter from Adobe illustrator into the app. The only problem I have been thinking about is my vowels. The way my alphabet works, the vowels bend either up and over or down an under the corresponding adjacent letters. I am wholly confident in figuring out how the basic stand alone letters will work and the kerning they will need, but would love some advice in how I should approach the vowel combinations.

For example my “O” bends down and to the left of a letter. My letters vary in size so I will need a different setting for “HO” and “MO” for example. (Like I said the alphabet is based on the english language but has some parallels. That being the “H” is 2/3 the size of “M”)

I read a little bit of variable fonts on the website but don’t want to open a can of worms and put a bunch of work in the wrong direction. Ultimately I know this will be a painstaking process of me looking up a list of all used current english vowel combinations and shopping each and everyone into my glyph list.

Any info would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Quinn

What you want to read about are OpenType features, especially contextual Alternates. There are tutorials about in the tutorial section.