字体设计的过程

很多人问我字体设计的过程是怎样的，我一般就简单的说先手绘然后钢笔勾。其实也就是这样。重要的是你要有满意的手绘稿，然后再加上满意的后期软件处理，还有必不可少的，欣赏你的客户。这个过程可以很快，也会很漫长。刚好在网上闲逛，看到这位仁兄的一个字体过程，虽然是英文，但是道理一样，我就不客气了，拿来大家分了，我们要赶紧进步赶上他们的水平，这样我就不用总翻译英文的教程，就需要他们翻译我们中文的教程了，哈哈，期待这一天……好了，废话不说了，开始吧！！！

I'm often asked how I get the jobs I do. Well like any business I have to advertise in one way or another to my target demographic. That is creative directors and marketing people. I ran this ad in a west coast trade publication and the marketing director for Lifetime saw my ad, loved the "Fuelosophy" exploratory work I did for Pepsi and hired me to develop the Christmas promotion for their network.So essentially I had to spend around $250 dollars to land this job.

我的这个case是从哪来的呢？就是从这个杂志上。客户看到了杂志上刊登的我为百事公司设计的字体，于是就找到了我。让我帮他设计一个圣诞节用的字体“Fa La La La Lifetime.”。佣金250美元。（也不是很多啊，哈哈）

Knowing my client desired to have a specific styling for their project meant I didn't have to explore a wide range of appropriate type styles. So I just began working out the details of for the wording "Fa La La La Lifetime." I started roughing out sketches on various letterforms and playing with the shapes.

知道了客户的喜好，我就很快明确了设计方向，也就不需要设计很多风格。然后就潦草的勾出大概的样子。（我们每次一提就3、4个，不行还要重新来过，最后客户选花了眼，都不知道自己要什么，悲哀）

Once I determine a direction or vibe for where I want to go I then begin to refine it and shape it until I have a finalized refined sketch I can then scan in and build from in my drawing program. I was after a festive feel and felt the lettering needed to read like a sing song voice of sorts.

一旦方向有了，我就开始不断调整，直到我觉得可以拿去扫描为止。这个方向就是节日的感觉，让人觉得这文字就像歌声一样，婉转动人。

After scanning in my refined drawing I place it into my drawing program and begin to build my vector shapes. There is no guess work, I'm just following what I've drawn out beforehand. I guess you could say I'm manually tracing my drawing in vector form.

My build process is a combination of point by point path building and shape building. On the letter "a's" I used the ellipse tool to form the circular part. It just doesn't make any sense to try and build that point by point, you risk it looking hinky.

I continue this methodology until I have all my basic paths complete. Remember at this point make a copy of your paths and put it on a layer that is turned off. This will server you in building other content as you progress and be vector insurance in case you mess something up along the way.

扫描好了，就开始画矢量了，也就是钢笔勾。钢笔勾，一般有用点勾，和用几何形状，比如a和s我就用椭圆形工具画个椭圆作参考。（最好这样，不然做出来

曲线不圆润。还有就是钢笔勾最好不要用“alt”断点的方式，这样虽然看起来方便但是做出来的东西经不起放大看。切记切记！）

When building vector shapes an easy way to figure out where to place the points is to think of the shape as a clock. For example this loop of the "L" to top points are 12

o'clock, the right 3 o'clock, bottom 6 o'clock, left 9 o'clock and so forth. There are exceptions to this rule but I'll be doing another tutorial on this process later.When building curved shapes like this the key part to keep your bezier handles parallel to one another and at 90 degrees. Like any rules there are exceptions but in more cases than not it will apply.

在用钢笔工具也就是贝塞尔曲线的时候，在哪放点是很重要的。我一般把外形看做一个钟。比如这个“L”的拐角处，上面是12点，下面是6点。（恩，点的位置是重要的，外形如果总是不满意，就要去调整点的外置了。）

creating compound paths with your vector shapes you'll notice that on shapes like the letterform "L" where the shape over laps itself it loses the intersecting content and you'll have to fix that in order to make it look like the letterform overlaps itself. This is the part of vector building that requires some true craft and skill. There is no tool or pull down menu that will do this, it requires some good eyeballing to create the shapes you need to punch out the gaps necessary to give the illusion of depth in your design.

A smart designer will pull a copy of the "L" before creating the compound shape and from that inset it to help create the content needed. This is where you'll have to explore and figure it out on your own, I'm just showing you the end result of how I arrived at my punch out.

把路径复合后，发现“L”交叉的地方没有了交叉的感觉。所以就需要调整一下，让他有交叉重叠的感觉。这就不是死的东西了，需要你自己去感觉，用你慧眼去看，需要在哪里断开，断多少，怎么断。

你够聪明的话就会多复制一个没有断开的L，以免你断的感觉不好，后面要修改。（一定要记住备份最初的源文件，以免重新来过的时候抓狂。还有就是你的眼力，一个出色的设计师眼睛是要比鹰还要敏锐的，放很大很大看细节，放很小看感觉。）

Once I have all my final paths done I drop in the color I want to use. At this point I continue to make any visual adjustments to balance the overall logo type. You'll notice subtle changes with each new incarnation.

Working digitally to me means I should be making any revisions to improve my design as I progress through each stage. I may draw it out beforehand but that doesn't mean there isn't room to improve it as I build the art.

有了形，就可以填颜色了。但是在填颜色的同时，还是要进行调整，这个调整可能是很细微的（有时候山寨客户是注意不到的，碰到不注重细节的客户，这样真是浪费时间，但是在我手里出来的东东又不能不负责，每次都是纠结中把细节做的满满的，自己安心就好了，对细节没要求的人，最多只能叫操作员，不是设计师）。