Getting into Typographic - What I need to do?

[omriazran]

Hi there. 
My name is Omri and I'am a graphic designer, I'm also new here :) lately I have some thoughts getting into typographic and I have some questions about it, and I hope you can help me...

My idea is to open a boutique font company that designs her own fonts and sell it of course. It will be only for my native language (Hebew).

My knowledge in typographic is very small, I just know how to design. Actually I haven't even created or designed a font yet. so I'm really new at this. so...

One, I want to open a company of fonts that I designs.
Two, I want to know what do I need to have to make it happen?

Other relevant questions, If I can do it alone? - There is some tut' 101 for beginners ?

Any help will be welcome,  Thanks everyone :)

[Ralf Herrmann]

Well, that is a big question! It’s basically: how to become a type designer and how to run a type foundry, i.e. how to run a business? In general: none of these things can be learned just from “tutorials”.  Those are complex topics which need a lot of learning, practice and considerations. 

But we recently had a similar question here. Maybe there is something useful for you in there. 

 

[omriazran]

Thanks for the replay Ralf. It toke me couple of days to understand all the comments in that link you shared. and most of the things said there, letting me understand more to where I'm getting into. And I do have some question if you can help me with that.

You mentioned "Glyphs" app to Kathrin. and I did look into it, and I have been researching in their blog and forums if the app supports Hebrew font creation, and it seems that it's not fully supporting Hebrew (See here). Now... everything wrote in the link I shared above, I don't understand. and I ask you if you understand what he saying, and it's fixable or good for me since I want to design fonts only in Hebrew...

So is "Glyphs" app good for Hebrew font creation? or do you know any other that is good with Hebrew?

I understand that most of the things in the link you shared., I will have to work alone by myself but I also want to "prepare" my ground-basics before I build something big, I don't want to stuck at the end trying to find a solution to a problem I can't fix. So that's why I ask if you know some good app that fully support Hebrew font creation.

 

Thanks again,
Omri.

[Ralf Herrmann]

Yeah, the Glyphs app would be good choice to start with type design if you use a Mac. I don’t fully understand the problem with Hebrew mentioned in the link, but it doesn’t look like a limitation of the app, but more a question of used glyph names and OpenType features. 

[omriazran]

I understand, and my question is this, I use Windows as Main OS. I want to create Hebrew fonts or Multilang' Font that is Hebrew with English, which app/software you know that supports/works with Hebrew well? - Super thanks!

[Riccardo Sartori]

1 hour ago, omriazran said:

which app/software you know that supports/works with Hebrew well?

The two biggest and most venerable players in the field are FontLab (commercial) and FontForge (open source), both available for Windows. Both are huge programs with a steep learning curve, and an active troubleshooting community. In recent years some leaner Mac-only apps with different approaches have gained good success among type designers (Glyphs and Robofont).

There also are less known options, often cheaper or easier for a beginner, but that could be limited in features.

For Hebrew support, you should ask directly to the companies.

[Petersen]

On January 24, 2016 at 4:59 AM, omriazran said:

I want to create Hebrew fonts or Multilang' Font that is Hebrew with English, which app/software you know that supports/works with Hebrew well? - Super thanks!

I'm late to the discussion, but, in general, font-building apps neither support nor fail to support various languages and alphabets. It's an oversimplification, but font-building apps simply provide a means to draw various glyphs and assign those glyphs Unicode numbers that correspond to the various characters used in different alphabets. To my knowledge, Unicode fully supports Hebrew.

Like Rolf, I don't fully understand the problem mentioned in the link, but my guess is that it's about some kind of OpenType coding error. Another oversimplification, but OpenType is a font format that includes the ability to add scripts that result in certain kinds of typographic behaviors under certain conditions. The end applications that use OpenType fonts, however, vary widely in their ability to use these scripted features.

I only have a passing familiarity with the Glyphs app (I mostly use FontLab), but my understanding is that Glyphs fully supports OpenType. It's also my understand (somebody correct me if I'm wrong) that Glyphs uses a certain amount of automation when building OpenType features where FontLab relies on lots of hand coding. I have no way of knowing for sure, but I would be very surprised if Glyph's OpenType feature support isn't fully compatible with Hebrew.