- Hey guys, today I'm here with Ian.
Ian how would you describe what you do?
Would you say designer, hand-letterer, font maker?
- I'd say at my core I'm a designer,
- Yeah, there we go. - 'cause that's what I've been
for about 17 years, but I'm probably most known for
and what I do now is calligraphy and lettering.
- Yeah, and pretty much if you ever see a script font
used in my videos that isn't my handwriting,
it is a font that Ian's made.
- I'm so thankful, it means my kids could eat, because you--
- Because I keep buying your fonts.
- Purchased my fonts.
- So I thought in today's video, 'cause at the moment
I am working on a font, I wanna make one on my own to sell.
Not that I want to compete with you in any way.
- No, no, it's fine, it's always good to have competition.
- There we go!
And I thought you could give some advice,
because you've obviously made many fonts.
How many fonts have you made, do you think?
- I think it's about 18 or 19, I think.
- Well, okay, so, how long would it take you
to make a font, and I know that's kind of like asking
how long is a piece of string,
but I've just started working on mine, right?
So, I'm at the stage now where I'm
vectorizing the letterforms-- - Okay.
- that I've drawn on my iPad, and I just feel like
it's gonna take me months to get this right,
and to like figure out how to use the font software.
You've obviously got more experience, so like that part
is a bit more fine-tuned - Yeah
- For you, but how long to make a font?
- At the moment, 'cause every time I make a font,
I sort of learn something new about the process of doing it,
or the application I'm using.
I'd say sort of a couple of weeks solid
- Yeah, wow that's amazing. - For creating.
Cause I, my fonts are based more
on the sort of on-trend stuff,
'cause you can get type designers
who spend a couple years on a font.
- Yeah, perfecting the sans serif, and yeah.
- Yeah, and making multiple weights,
and styles. - Yep, yep.
- Whereas I sort of do like one font or two fonts.
- Yeah. - Depends on the style as well
'cause if you're doing a script font and it's joining up,
that doubles the workload, 'cause you've gotta make sure
every letter - Yes, that is why I decided
to do a sans serif font for my first one.
- That's very clever, and that's why I did one of mine,
I just took my hand lettering, and I'd done a CAPS one,
- Yeah. - and that was all easy,
but then when I did my second one,
it was script one, and it took like ten times more,
and I, yeah, just didn't realize the complexity of it.
When you're first beginning,
the thing is, what I find, is that you have to just get,
you have to release one, you have to make,
- Yeah. - 'Cause, like I said,
every time you do it, you learn a bit more.
- Yeah. - Makes you a bit quicker,
but then you also learn some stuff that'll make it better
for the person using it. - Yeah.
- But, I've only done that through releasing it,
'cause if you don't release it, you never learn, I find.
- Yeah, true. - So, it's like make,
learn, repeat; make, learn, repeat.
- How do you you decide what style to make for your font,
'cause that was my first, immediate issue.
I was like, okay so I know I want to make a font,
it's probably going to involve, like it's definitely
going to involve me lettering it
or handwriting it, or something.
- Yeah. - But how do you decide
on what style to make, 'cause I found myself
drawing a bunch of things and I was like, but which one
makes a good font, I don't know?
- For me, I find that I do ones that
I'm interested in at that time.
I made a font which I thought, okay I'll limit myself
to just using some certain shapes
and see if I can make a whole font doing that.
- Yeah.
- Or I might make one which is just a mono weight,
so just a single weight. - Yeah.
- Through the whole, through the whole font.
I know it's hard, 'cause especially if you're
hand drawing it, you start doing one lettering set
of styling, it moves off into something else.
- Yep, that is exactly what happened to me.
- You're doing it on the iPad, aren't you?
- Yep, yeah.
- I suppose, it's just making sure
that the brush you're using
in the application - Is the same.
- Can't have too much variant in it,
so, you know, you're limited.
So like, for me, if I'm doing a hand drawn one,
a lot of the time I'd use a specific pen,
and so I can only get one style of that pen,
and that means that the whole thing will look the same,
- Yeah. - Roughly, because I'm only
using that pen.
Maybe going over and just doing lots of A's
- Yeah. - And then choosing ones,
and then picking and choosing the ones that look
- Like they fit together?
- Yeah. - Yeah.
Do you do your lettering for your fonts on an iPad?
Or do you draw them by hand first?
Like on pen and paper. - Actually, I haven't,
I haven't actually made one using an iPad.
- Really?
- No, so it's either on paper,
scanned in, - Yeah.
- Illustrated in Glyhsapp, which is the one I mainly use,
- Yeah. - Or, I do it straight
into the, if it's a clean one, just going straight in there,
use the pen tool and draw onto the curves
and stuff like that.
I need to do one on the iPad, - Yeah.
- 'Cause it's just so many different styles on there
that I could, I do, but yeah haven't yet.
So, you're doing one that's, you know,
- There we go. - More advanced than I am.
- I don't know about more advanced.
Ian does a lot of awesome calligraphy on the iPad,
it's super inspiring to watch,
and he's got a YouTube channel as well,
that you should check out. - Yeah.
- Where he does videos about that sort of thing.
- I got some compilations on there,
so you can see what I do. - There you go.
What is a piece of advice you can give me
as a first-time font seller, like I dunno,
any tips and tricks for naming,
for I dunno, where to list it for sale?
Anything I should watch out for in the making process?
- In the making process, there's a terminology
called kerning, which is the space
between every pair of letter,
so like, if you're - Yeah.
- between the 'a' and the 'b.'
Checking it over, because there're certain letters
depending on the sans style, it may be 'a' and a 'v,'
the spacing's going to be a lot different
- True, yeah. - Than if it's between
an 'h' and an 'i.' - Yeah.
- And so, just being, just double-checking,
printing out sheets, turning it upside down is a good trick,
- Okay. - 'Cause it helps you
spot things, stops you reading it
- Like the weird white space? - 'Cause you just look
at the space, so. - Cool.
- That's one of the things I'm just
constantly learning about, and is something
that comes through just having an eye for that.
- Yeah. - And just making sure
that you're, when you preview the font,
that you can show people how it can used
in different situations, - Yeah.
- So they can catch the idea, okay this would work
really good for a certain project.
- Cool. Yes, good point.
- And that's what you're trying to get over,
they want to buy into that font and say,
okay, I can see I can use that for a poster,
or I can use that for a business card.
- Yeah, great. - And so, having great
examples, there's lots of places on the internet
where you can get free sort of mock-ups,
or you can buy some mock-ups,
or you can just sort of like maybe you do some stuff
for a pretend coffee shop, you know,
it's just coming up with good previews that really show it
- Yeah, true, you always do have really good previews.
- Yeah, its' just like a look book for your
- For your font, yeah.
- For your font.
- And what about naming your fonts.
How do you name them?
'Cause they've all got very interesting names.
- There's a few things that sometimes I find quite hard.
One, is the previews,
- Yeah. - 'cause its like,
'cause I don't actually do much graphic design,
it's like well, how are people going
to use my font - How to design, yeah.
- 'cause I don't, 'cause I don't do much design work.
Naming is the second hardest one,
- Okay. - 'Cause like a name can
really resonate with people.
Sometimes I get the name before I even get a font,
- Ah, interesting. - Or, I just started
and I think, actually this'll be a cool name.
Song titles are always quite cool, looking though them,
'cause you want it, sort of, one or two words
- Yeah. - Not too much longer.
Course it's getting harder 'cause there's more
and more fonts out there - More fonts, yeah.
Do you research and see if that names already been used
for a font, before you, yeah? - Yes, yeah,
I don't know what happens if it is,
but it's good to Google search the name,
- Yeah, cool. - but just song lyrics,
or song words, that's one thing,
or just, you're just looking around and you hear a word,
- Yeah. - And you think,
that would sound cool, you want something
that relates to what you're doing.
You might be like, you're in the supermarket
and you see a name - Yeah.
- Of a biscuit or something or a packet of crisps,
and you think, oh that would work out
as a name, obviously you - Yeah.
- want to avoid copyright, - Walkers.
(laughing)
I'm excited to get into that,
but I feel like it's gonna be the thing
that I really overthink.
- I sometimes see what the name looks like in the font,
- Yep, that makes sense. - And some actually look,
some names just really showcase like the letters.
- True. - Some people name it
based on how specific letters really showcase it.
- Oh, that's such a good idea.
Thank you, Ian, this has been
really useful for me. - And thank you,
good to meet up - Yeah.
- And finally do a video.
- Exactly. - To be rated, yeah.
- So make sure you check out Ian's channel,
right now we're going to go film a wee little Q & A,
over there, aren't we?
- Yes, yes. - So, that'll be fun.
So, go check that out and make sure you subscribe
to Ian while you're there.
Hope you enjoyed learning about fonts and how to make them,
and if you are interested in signing up to hear
when my font launches, go to charlimarie.com/font
and I'll let you know whenever it comes out, all right.
Thanks for watching, bye! Thanks!
- [Ian] Brilliant.