Thanks for the advert but I would say most members of this board possess those skills.

Hi Ken,
I do realize that most members possess those skills. I am merely offering my services to those who are overloaded with work and need assistance. Have a nice day on the forums.

Hey All,

Just to lend some credibility to this post, I have been working with Bai on some typefaces we will be releasing at Font Bros and Veer in the coming weeks and she’s done some outstanding work. . .

Being that there is a steep learning curve to making typefaces, her talents in Illustrator have done well to bring a good majority of the drawing effort forward while I can focus on the production side and it has worked out well . . .

She continues to work on projects with me but has more time available than as many projects as I can have her work on so take advantage of her talents if you have a pile of drawings you’ve been ’waiting to get to one of these days’

Best,
Stuart :D

Thanks for your post Stewart.

Certainly Eben!

:D

Actually, Now that I think about it I have some questions.

It seems like there would be some downsides to not doing your vectorization in Fontlab. But the ones I can think of off the top of my head can be defeated - consistent relative size for instance.

What do you see as the pros & cons of the model you have?

Would you given your druthers, have choosen to have Bai work in Fontlab directly?

Also, Bai, I suggest that you alter your registration to include your full name. It looks more serious trust worthy etc.

I was going to respond last evening but my eyes were too tired . . .

So with a mostly fresh brain on your questions Eben, I think I need to quality the type of type I’m developing with Bai which is strictly display work. It’s not as dogmatic and exacting as what is required for text work but still requires a good deal of attention to create nice letter combinations that feel correct and are visually balanced throughout.

Now as to the Illustrator vs. Fontlab matter, I definitely prefer that Bai works in Illustrator because it’s still generally a more comfortable environment for me to draw my own glyphs in and even if nodes have to snap to a 1000em grid, who’s to say what ’correct’ is if the integrity of the form is still well intact . . .

I have drawn faces in Fontlab and still find it cumbersome and slow but I suspect practice will improve both of those things . . .

To your question about the pros and cons of the model Bai and I are working within, I’d say there are far more pros than cons.

For starters, I’m betting like every font designer on this board, we have more type specimen references and sketches than we may ever turn into typeface in our natural lifetimes and while I may ’cherrypick’ my favorites to take from top to tail, there are still some really nice specimens that will otherwise never have a life digitally without enlisting the efforts of a competent vector tracing artist.

And at worst, I can critique the work Bai provides me and in turn educate her to become a better lettering artist and typeface designer in her own right so I think it’s a win-win situation all around . . .

I think I am a rare breed in the font world in that I have always embraced collaboration rather than tried to hold all my cards so close to the vest and try to maintain a solo effort. There are so many talented lettering artists, type technologists, software maketers, and licensing attorneys (OK one that I know :D) alike that working in a bubble can stunt professional growth and limit how far one can go in this field.

Stuart :D

Thanks Stuart! Because I have become accustomed to fontlab at this point the approach was not intuitive to me. But I do understand how you would stick to the tool that feels most right to you. I occasionally wish I had some of the AI tools in Fontlab & vice versa. But this makes sense to me now. And your final point is certainly an excellent one. Hopefully your “type” is becoming less rare.