Outline Errors and Round Shapes

Hi all,

I’m designing a very rounded, extended display typeface. It will not be variable. I’m using Round Corners with Visual Corrections and skewing to build my shapes. More on this below.

So far, I’ve only built a few glyphs. When I run ‘Select Glyphs With Outline Errors’, it only flags those glyphs with curves. My one straight glyph (i), is not flagged.

I wasn’t sure what the actual error was, so I installed the Red Arrow plug-in. Most of the errors are missing extremums. There are a few smooth connection issues.

Does Glyphs show an error because it thinks I’m trying to use hinting? Do I need to worry about having no extremums?

Getting back to the rounded shapes …

Is it better to apply Round Corners before or after applying skew/slant?

Also, is the Skew function (right sidebar) the same as running Slant in the Filter>Transformations menu?

Thanks in advance from a real beginner.

The errors are shown by the Red Arrow plugin that is developed by @jkutilek.

You don’t need to worry too much. You might need to have a look at it when testing the font. But technically, that is not an error.

User error. I assumed the ‘Select Glyphs With Outline Errors’ was coming directly from Glyphs. I was getting plug-in happy. Thanks for clarifying the extremum thing.

re. the round shapes … does it matter if I apply Round Corners before or after applying skew/slant?

Yes.

Can you please clarify?

I’ve been applying round corners with visual corrections on after I skew my shape. To my eye, I find it looks more natural.

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A sharp angle gets a smaller rounding radius, and a blunt angle gets a slightly bigger radius, so they appear the same visually. There’s a precise explanation in the handbook.

Thanks