Font Design Process

Here's a brief look at how to turn a hand-sketched image into a compound shape for use in most font design software.

 

Step 1: Draft out and fill in your character image.  Make it as large as you like (bigger isn't always better if your design is simple, but it is recommended to show up any minute inconsistencies).  Keep it nice and clean, so you don't have to erase any smudges or sketch lines later on in the process.

 Step 2: Scan your image.  Get a very high resolution scan to make your character image as accurate as possible.

 Step 3: Bring your scanned image into Photoshop.

 Step 4: Use your magic wand to select your character out of the background.  Keep adjusting the tolerance until you get the desired selection and/or de/select any additional information.

 Step 5: Make a work path from your selection (bottom of the Path panel, middle button).

 Step 6: Copy your work path.

 Step 7: Open Illustrator and paste your work path into place as a Compound Shape.

 Step 8: When selected, your path should show all the various points and anchors, which usually creates a funky copy of what you intended your character image to look like.

 Step 9: Get rid of the unnecessary points and adjust your anchors accordingly.

 Step 10: OPTIONAL - If you created your character image directly in Illustrator, make sure to use the Shape Builder Tool to join multiple shapes (click and drag) and cut out the negative shapes inside the characters (alt-click).

Step 11: Set you character image to black stroke and empty fill and save your character image to a CorrespondingLetter.ai file (i.e. A.ai).