Design personalised Windows fonts

Launch a web browser and type www.snipca.com/x929 into the Address or Location Bar. This is the home of the service we will be using to create our font by ‘painting’ each letter onto the screen using the mouse – no graphical expertise required. First though, we need to register so that we can save and share fonts as well as see and use those created by other people. So, to get going, click the Start Now button.

At the next screen click the Sign Up Now link to continue. Fill in the simple form (name, email, user name and password) and then agree to the terms of use. Click the Sign Up button and Fontstruct will send an email to the supplied address. When it arrives, open it and click the link and the site will open in a new browser window. Sign in with the user name and password just created and your private Fontstruct home page will appear. Click the Create New Fontstruction button to continue.

At the next screen type in a name for the new font and click the Start Fontstructing button. This opens the main Fontstructor window, which is where we will be spending most of this Workshop. It looks like a piece of graph paper, divided into squares with a couple of intersecting blue lines. There is a floating tool palette, and a library of shapes on the left that we will use to create our letters. The alphabet runs along the bottom of the screen and the current letter ‘A’ is highlighted there and in the floating Current Letter panel.

First, drag the zoom slider to the left a bit and make the squares smaller. This will allow us to create more detailed letters. Next, drag the various floating palettes out of the way so there is room to work and try each of the three drawing tools in turn. Click the pencil once and click once on the square where the two lines intersect (this will typically be the bottom left corner of each letter). Then click the Rectangle button and draw out one of those. Finally, create a line with the line tool.

Remove the three shapes just drawn by clicking on the eraser in the Tools palette and then dragging over them with the mouse pointer. Click on any individual squares you miss to remove them too. Next, click the pencil icon and start to draw out the first letter; a capital ‘A’. If you put a brick in the wrong place, just click it again and Fontstruct will remove it. Don’t worry too much about the actual design at this stage, as we are just trying to get familiar with the way letters can be created.

Our ‘A’ looks a bit like a Space Invader, so let’s add a few angles. To switch from the standard square brick to something else, scroll through the All Bricks library on the left of the working area until you find one you like and then click on it. Replace an existing brick in the letter by clicking on it with the new brick, or add to the letter by clicking on an empty square. Here we are using a triangle shape to produce a smooth diagonal edge.

We have now completed the other side of the peak using a second triangle shape. Notice how the My Bricks library on the left now has all three of the brick styles used to create this letter so far. Next, it would be nice to remove those ugly squares from inside the top of the ‘A’ so again we need to look at the All Bricks library and pick the shapes we need to replace the existing square brick on both sides; here we’ve replaced the one on the right.

Click the Save button. Right, this font is now looking a bit too angular so we are going to experiment by adding a few curves to the mix. Here for example we have extended the top of the ‘A’, replaced the sharp inclines with round curves and then replaced the two bottom bricks with a pair of rounded ‘feet’. Then we have scrolled down the All Bricks library to find some rounded inner curves to replace those sharp angles. As the screenshot shows, we have replaced the one at the top right.

We have now added smooth inner curves to the rest of our letter ‘A’ and it’s looking good. Before we move on to the create the next letter, let’s add a couple of extra guides to the grid so that we make sure subsequent letters occupy the same space – that way our character set will be in proportion. Go to the Advanced menu and choose View and then extra Guides. This adds a couple of intersecting green lines to the display. Use the mouse to drag these into position so that they frame the letter.

Now we are ready to start designing the letter ‘B’. Since it’s similar to ‘A’ we can use Fontstruct’s copy and paste facility and use it as a starting point for the second letter. Click the arrow/square icon in the toolbar and then drag round the letter to select it. Next, open the Advanced menu and choose Edit and then Copy to copy the highlighted letter to the Windows Clipboard. Then, click the letter ‘B’ on the alphabet strip at the foot of the screen and click Advanced Edit and Paste to copy the letter ‘A’ into the new slot.

Before we start to turn this ‘A’ into a ‘B’ there is something else we can do to help. Open the Advanced menu, choose View and then select Adjacent characters. This will display the letters either side of the one we are working on (as long as they have been created of course – here there is only the ‘A’). Now we can go ahead and adapt this ‘A’ using the eraser to rub out those bricks we don’t need and the Bricks palettes on the left to add new ones.

Before we move on there is one last trick to learn. Let’s say you change your mind about the basic style of the font. We, for example, started with something that is essentially conservative. Rather than starting from scratch, work out which bricks you would like to replace and what you would like to replace them with and drag the new brick up from the All Bricks palette and drop it onto the old one in the My Bricks palette. Here we have replaced solid squares with ‘holey’ ones.

The holey style is fun but not so useful in real life, so change it back and save again. We have not created an entire alphanumeric set here but having mastered the basics, the rest is easy. You can look at the whole font at any time by clicking the My Fontstruct tab at the top and then choosing View. When it’s finished you can also save the font to the computer’s hard disk and use it as you would any other Windows font. Click the Download button to start.

Follow the instructions to download the font to the Windows Desktop. When it downloads, right-click on the folder and choose Extract All. Follow the wizard to extract the files and find the one that corresponds to the font you created. Open the Windows Fonts folder by clicking the Start button, opening Control Panel, switching to Classic View (or Small/Large icons view in Windows 7) and double-clicking the Fonts icon. Now drag the new font into the Fonts folder. This screenshot shows our newly created font available from the Fonts dialogue box in Windows Notepad – just like the real thing.