With tools such as " Google Fonts " and " Typekit » which offer thousands of different fonts, there are almost countless options that will allow you to choose a good font for your blog. However, you're still only limited to selecting a font that someone else created. There are different reasons why you will want to create your own font.

This tutorial will show you step by step how to create your own font. We will also offer suggestions for some less technical options as well as more advanced alternatives. However, before that, we will understand why would you want to create a custom font.

Why create a custom font?

The creation of the police can become very technical, costing you time and money (That's why you really need to consider everything before you embark on this adventure). The intended use of your policy will help you decide how much time and financial investment you will need to put into developing this policy.

If it's just for fun, a basic font creation tool like a handwriting converter might be what you need. If it's for a specific project, you might want to take the time to learn some vital techniques, and also use more sophisticated software. This is the route we have taken throughout this piece.

Finally, if you are creating a font that is intended for use by others, you will probably need to invest a lot more time in the development process, and spend a lot more money on professional software.

Some basic tools to start

Before we dive into the tutorial, let's take a look at some basic tools for those who just want to take pleasure in creating a custom font. These solutions can also be a good starting point for getting acquainted with some of the technical aspects of font creation:

• PaintFont (free): This service allows you to turn your writing into a font by filling out and scanning a template.
• FontStruct (free): Using FontStruct, you will be able to create your own font that uses geometric shapes.
• Fontself (49 $): This tool allows you to turn handwritten letters into fonts on Adobe Illustrator, and will soon be compatible with Adobe Photoshop.
• Metaflop (free): This tool allows you to customize basic fonts by adjusting a simple set of settings.

Now we have looked at the simplest options for creating fonts, we will move to more technical methods.

How to create your own font (in 6 simple steps)

If you are a little more serious about creating a unique font, and want more customization options, there are several free tools to choose from. However, before we get to the software itself, there are a few preliminary steps that we consider. Let's tackle each in turn.

Step # 1: Define an Exquisite Design

This is the most important step in the process of creating the font. As with any design project, it is imperative that you outline your goals up front. Here are some potentially important questions to ask when creating your own font:

• Is your font for a specific project, will it be used by other projects?
• Will the app require a large or small font size?
• Do you want the basic font type either Serif or Sans Serif?
• Have you come across fonts that you could use to inspire you?

Once you have the answers to these questions, you can then proceed to planning the design of your font.

Step # 2: Start on paper

While it can be tempting to go straight to your software, many professional police tutorials recommend that the preliminary design work be done on paper. Try to create shapes that represent a vision of what your font might look like. This task is hardly possible on a PC.

Here are some useful tips for creating paper letters:

• You don't have to draw a complete character set - the most recommended letters are "H", "n", "o" and "y".
• Mark on the baseline and other important high lines to use as a guide.
• Look at other fonts to see where the shapes are repeated in a character set.
• Moving the page instead of your hand will allow you to create smoother curves.

Step # 3: Choose and install your software

For mid-level typography design, there are a number of free apps available, and it's important to know which one will suit you the most.

1 - FontForge

« FontForge Is an open-source font editor with a huge amount of documentation to guide you through the design process. Although the design interface can be a bit intimidating at first, once you get used to it FontForge therefore becomes a powerful tool for creating beautiful custom fonts. You can start from scratch, using available tools, or download font images to use as a starting point.

2 - Birdfont

Birdfont is slightly more intuitive than " FontForge So it may be a better option for those looking to get started quickly. As " FontForge You can start your font from scratch using the editor, or upload images as a starting point. However, while there are tutorials available, “ Birdfont Do not have as many as deep as FontForge. " Birdfont Is free to create policies under the SIL license, but requires a donation of 5 $ or more for commercial use.

Step # 4: Start Creation

Once you have your software installed, you are ready to start creating your font. Depending on your choice of software, you can start from scratch, upload images of your designs to paper, or upload a font file to edit it. Once you have your characters transformed, you can expand it to include letters, numbers, and other characters.

This part of the process can be quite lengthy because each piece of software will have its own learning curve. However, once you start to get used to it, the process should speed up pretty quickly. To help you go fast, here is some of the terminology that you will need to familiarize yourself with:

• glyphs: Each individual character in a font is considered a glyph.
• Basis of reference: The invisible line on which all font characters sit.
• Line of ascending: The invisible line to which ascending begin.
• Height of ascendants : The height of the vertical stroke upward on letters such as "h" and "k".
• Depth of chute: The depth of the vertical stroke down on letters such as "p" and "y".
• Stem: The main vertical stroke of a letter like "F" and "T".
• Bowl: The closed rounded part of letters such as "b", "d" and "o".
• Bezier Curve : A parametric formula used to model smooth evolutionary curves.

We barely scratched the surface, but if you're someone interested in creating a font, this diagram shows you some of the anatomy of the font we just talked about:

Step # 5: Refine your character set

During the process of creating a font, it's easy to just focus on the individual characters. However, it is also important to consider how the font will display when refining it. Here are some tips to keep you in mind while refining your character set:

• Pay attention to letter spacing and kerning when combining a series of these letters during the process.
• Experiment with different sizes for each character, especially if the application that will use your font will choose large sizes.
• Print your work regularly throughout the design process, it is often easier to spot subtle mistakes.

At this point, you're almost there! You have designed your font, chosen and achieved what you want with your software, converted to digital format and refined to perfection. All that's left now is to download it.

Step # 6: Download your fonts for WordPress

Once you've finished your custom font, you'll probably want to start using it. If the intended use for your font is on your own WordPress site, there are a number of download methods available. The easiest is to use a font plugin, one of the most popular is " Use any Font ":

This plugin automatically converts your font files, extracts CSS code, and integrates it into the files of your theme. It supports TTF, OTF and WOFF extensions, and once downloaded the font will be available for use on WordPress. This plugin is free for a single font conversion, but with a donation of 10 $ or more you will be able to convert an unlimited number.

That's it for this tutorial. I hope you will manage to create custom fonts for your WordPress blog.