Being in a font design sort of mood, I was reading last month’s MyFonts newsletter interview with Jim Parkinson, and I came across this bit on how he starts out:

Every alphabet or typeface I did from Hallmark on until the End of Analog was done in essentially the same way. First, the initial designing, maybe just vowels. The vowels appear the most and therefore contribute the most to the quality and personality of a font. I like to start with the capital I. It’s not too challenging and offers the designer instant reward and the encouragement to go on.

After the vowels, I add an m and an n. Then I can start tracing long strings of letters to establish spacing, relative weight and proportional characteristics, etc. I always start with “minimum.” Myron’s word. The parade of verticals helps establish spacing and color. After that, it is page after page of tracing lettering strings, adding new characters and adjusting old ones the whole time.

Interesting… I’ve been yearning to design fonts for a while now, and I’ve used FontForge a little bit, but nothing’s happened. Time for that to change, I think. Mmm. I can’t wait till I can design books using my own typefaces. :) (Assuming said typefaces are any good, of course. But we’ll cross our fingers.)