A handmade font should not look as though a computer has apologised for it. My handmade custom font design process often begins with paint, ink, print, cut paper or deliberately imperfect marks. Then the editing starts. The aim is not to preserve every accident like a museum exhibit. It is to keep the energy while building a font that designers can actually install, type with and trust. The mess is the beginning. The system is the finished work.
Why begin by hand?
Digital drawing is clean, fast and endlessly correctable. Those are strengths. They can also tempt every shape towards the same polite finish.
Physical materials resist. A brush changes with pressure. Ink bleeds. Paper has tooth. Printed forms gain dents, gaps and uneven edges. These qualities introduce decisions that are difficult to invent convincingly with a tidy vector path.
Perfection is available everywhere. Character needs a little more trouble.
Choose the right tool for the voice
The material is not a gimmick. It changes the language of the letters.
- Brush and ink can create speed, contrast and expressive terminals.
- Dry brush introduces texture and broken edges.
- Paint can feel bold, direct and physical.
- Cut paper produces blunt shapes and surprising joins.
- Print and letterpress textures bring pressure, wear and repetition.
- Hand lettering creates rhythm that begins with movement rather than geometry.
The brand comes first. There is no point using a brush because brushes look artistic if the result needs to feel engineered and exact.
Make enough mistakes to find the right one
I produce multiple versions of important characters. Not because indecision is charming, but because repetition reveals what belongs to the design.
One A may have the right stance. Another has the better crossbar. A third contains a small accident that gives the whole alphabet its direction.
The best mark is rarely the one made most carefully. Annoying, but useful.
Turn physical marks into digital shapes
Selected characters are captured, cleaned and developed digitally. This is not a tracing exercise.
The forms need consistent proportions, alignment and weight. Counters must remain open. Similar letters need a family resemblance. Texture has to survive at useful sizes without turning into visual porridge.
The character of the source stays. The parts that prevent it working do not.
Build an alphabet, not a collection
A convincing A and a magnificent R are only the beginning. The rest of the font needs the same logic.
I develop recurring decisions around:
- Stroke endings and corners
- Width and proportion
- Texture density
- Curves and joins
- Uppercase and lowercase relationships
- Alternates and repeated letters
Consistency does not require identical forms. Handmade type often benefits from alternates that stop repeated letters looking stamped by a suspiciously well-behaved robot.
Make it work
The font is spaced, kerned and tested in real brand language. Numerals, punctuation and symbols are developed with the same care as the headline letters.
Desktop and webfont versions can then be prepared for the people who will use them. Nobody should need to know how much paint reached the table. They should be able to choose the font and start working.
Craft without the craft theatre
Big type companies can deliver immaculate corporate systems. My particular advantage is somewhere else: I bring more than twenty years of design, advertising and visual-culture experience to handmade type with a pulse.
You deal directly with the person making the marks and building the font. The original idea is less likely to be polished into anonymity on its way through a large process.
Human in. Useful out.
A handmade brand font should retain evidence of how it was made without becoming difficult to use. That balance is the job.
If your brand has become a little too clean, safe or familiar, bring me the problem. We can start with paint, paper or something less sensible. Commission a handmade custom font.
Written by Simon Stratford, type designer and graphic designer. These are my opinions, reached after too little sleep and too much coffee. You can also follow my antics on @itsmesimonok, or leave a comment below. Despite all the opinions, I’m actually quite nice.