[scribus] Font construction (Re: scribus Digest, Vol 2, Issue 42)

[Matt Gushee]

Paul wrote:

>>> On 5/25/08, avox <avox at arcor.de> wrote:
>>>> ..... fonts take months or years.
>>> I do plan to design at least one font whenever I can find some time. I
>>> first intend to go through the Open Font Library that some kind soul
>>> mentioned earlier in the thread. However, is your above statement
>>> really true?
>>>
>>> Would other people, who have designed one or more fonts, like to give
>>> their opinions?
> 
> I have not designed my own (or a) font but I would be interested in the
> process. Would this not solve the problem of using a font for commercial
> work? If one designs their own font, even if it was just one section
> (regular,bold),  the designer (you) could use it to your hearts content, and
> allow others to use it as well (with some restrictions of course). My
> current method of 'writing', probably more 'printing' and 'writing', might
> lend itself to creating a font package. Therefore, I would be interested in
> whatever comments might show up in this forum.

Since I haven't personally designed a font (though I've started a couple 
of times ;-) I won't comment at length, but I think it is important to 
distinguish between text fonts (or general-purpose font families) on the 
one hand, and display fonts on the other. The latter need not take a 
very long time to develop, and you can create great (which could mean, 
for example, both beautiful & readable) page designs by using a very 
ordinary font for all the body text, and an "interesting" font for 
display text (titles, captions, pull quotes, etc.).

-- 
Matt Gushee