Hi! I’m an extreme beginner. I’m enjoying learning the program, but I feel that there should be more tutorials for beginners. There’s just the users manual and 7 short videos.
Does anyone know of additional video resources? There should be more help for beginners. Thanks!
New tutorial videos are in the works.
Which topics would you like me to cover?
Use of the Fit Curve function would be useful. I haven’t employed that at all and I think a video would be the perfect medium for explaining it.
Thanks! You guys are very responsive.
I’d love some basic tutorials, walking the beginner through the font creation process though export. The “Editing Outlines” video is great, so what’s needed is something that covers what comes after all the glyphs are designed through export.
I’d like one that describes how to set the various heights- cap height, x-height etc.
It would be nice to have a tutorial which shows how to make multiple weights and one which shows how to make script/cursive fonts. It would also be nice to have one that shows how to paste Illustrator files. I understand this process is not the best one, but so many people ask about it, it makes sense to at least show the process.
Thanks!
Okay, I got Fit Curve, Multiple Master and AI to dingbat font on my list. I should be able to find the time for making a handful of new videos this summer.
indyfont: What about the font creation process would you like me to cover? I am not sure about some of the suggestions you make. What can I show about setting the heights other than how to open Font Info? What should I show about exporting a font other than choosing Export from the File menu? In short, I do not believe that video is always the right medium.
I’d like one that describes how to set the various heights- cap height, x-height etc.
For the sake of the nubz it would be good to explain the concept of the em, 1000 unit PS em, 2048 unit TT em, and how cap height/ascenders/descenders/etc. all fit into it. That stuff is all floating around the internet and seems obvious to those of us who already know it, but to a beginner it might be just as confusing as HHEA vertical metrics.
For now we concentrated on tutorials that relate to functionality in Glyphs. But we will add some general font-design related posts.
Maybe we can set up a link-list to sites with useful information.
I wouldn’t mind to see something on multiple member font families…how to name them in Glyphs so that they show up in the font menu as a single family. I don’t want to compare apps, but I find it pretty easy to get name fonts so that, say a 10 member font family, shows up in OpenType aware apps as a single family, but also displays properly in non-ot aware apps.
For instance if a family has normal and italic faces for Light, Regular, Medium, SemiBold, Bold, and ExtraBold, it shows as a single family in ot aware apps, but shows in non-ot aware apps as Somefont Light (Regular and Italic), Somefont (Regular, Italic, Bold and Bold Italic), Somefont Medium (Regular and Italic), Somefont SemiBold (Regular and Italic), and Somefont ExtraBold (Regular and Italic).
The non-ot aware convention is easy for both, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out how to get all of the members to show as a single family in ot aware apps.
I’d deeply appreciate something that explains chaining contextual substitution, as well as anything else that’s relevant to making a script font. I’m making a script font where 95% of all letters will get substituted if ‘calt’ is turned on, but I can only manage a couple glyphs changes before I can’t reason about why things aren’t working – probably because I need to understand the OpenType layout engine algorithm better.
adiabatic: Are you aware of these two blogposts?
http://glyphsapp.com/blog/features-part-2-contextual-substitutions/
http://glyphsapp.com/blog/features-part-3-advanced-contextual-alternates/
off-topic for the videos, but a topic for the great glyphs-blog:
#1 - - - - - - - -
Enabling old font-naming syntax (e.g. for QuarkXpress) in glyphs with custom parameters.
#2 - - - - - - - -
working with mekkablues scrips
“…I can only manage a couple glyphs changes before I can’t reason about why things aren’t working – probably because I need to understand the OpenType layout engine algorithm better.”
For that kind of thing you might be better off getting help from someone else who codes complex OpenType features. Depending on the complexity of your design you might need to hire someone to help with production. Talk to other script font designers about how they get this stuff done.
mekkablue: I’d seen the first but not the second. Thanks!
DTF: I e-mailed the Pecita guy asking to see his OpenType features file, but no response yet. It’s been less than 24 hours, though, so I’m not worried my message got lost.
I saw Fraction Fever 2 by Tal Leming, but it seems anchored to slashes in a way that Quikscript writing isn’t.
I too would love tutorials on Multiple Masters. Specifically how to have Glyphs interpolate the intermediary weights.
I’ve read and followed the user guide so I’m able to add light and bold instances into a regular font, but I’m not sure how to interpolate a semibold etc.
I have enjoyed watching the videos and found them to be helpful.
I would also love it if you would be able to walk us through the steps in the video tutorial a little slower. I often have to watch the video multiple times in order to understand how to proceed from one step to another. I feel that some steps are glossed over or skipped, which may be fine for others, but challenging for someone like myself to follow.
Any chance of a video tutorial or blog post dealing with cursive fonts- setting ‘entry’ and ‘exit’ anchors? I’ve never done this myself and would love to see it in action. This would be very helpful. Thanks!
The Arabic video tutorial shows it.
you’re right! I’d forgotten about that. Thanks!
indyfont
I would also like to see this area covered as I have had some problems transferring my letterforms into the correct settings after creating them
on Adobe illustrator.
How to get the correct settings into GlyphsApp X-Height, Baseline, etc.
Read this, please:
http://www.glyphsapp.com/tutorials/importing-from-illustrator
You can set vertical metrics like the x-height in File > Font Info > Masters.