Tutorial: Draw a Glyph

You need Runebender installed and a font to work in. Press Cmd+N for a new one: an untitled UFO with Google Fonts metrics and the Latin Core set as empty encoded glyphs. Save it somewhere you can find it.

Type H in the search box at the top left. Double-click the cell.

The editor opens on an empty glyph with its metrics drawn around it: the baseline, the x-height, the cap height, and two vertical lines for the sidebearings.

Take the pen tool.

1. Click at the baseline, a little right of the left sidebearing.
2. Click straight up at the cap height.
3. Click right by about 80 units.
4. Click back down to the baseline.
5. Click the first point again to close the contour.

You have a rectangle. Switch to the select tool and drag its points until the width looks right at a glance. Numbers come later; the eye first.

Rather than draw the second stem, copy the first: select all four points with Cmd+A, then Cmd+D to duplicate. The copy lands on top of the original. Drag it right, holding shift to keep it level.

Draw the crossbar the same way, a rectangle between the two stems, a little above the middle. The optical centre of a letter sits above the mathematical centre.

Three commands, in this order, before you go further.

Cleanup

Path → Remove Overlap	Cmd+Shift+O. Merges the three rectangles into one outline.
Path → Correct Path Direction	Cmd+Shift+R. Sets the direction the fill rule expects.
Path → Tidy Up Paths	Cmd+Shift+T. Drops any zero-length segments the overlap left.

The bottom bar holds the advance width and the two sidebearings. Set both sidebearings to the same number to start; something near 80 units for a capital H at 1000 UPM.

Spacing is judged in company, not alone.

Take the text tool and type HHH. Then HOH if you have drawn an O, or leave it as three Hs.

The rhythm should be even: the white inside the H and the white between two Hs want to look like the same amount of space. Drag the sidebearing edges until they do. Everything you change shows up in the line as you change it.

An H needs no curve checking, but find the control now. Open the Curves section in the right panel and turn on the comb. It is flat on straight segments. On curves, a kink invisible at text size shows as a break.

Cmd+S. The header shows the time.

Now look at what changed:

One glyph file, and the metrics if you touched them. That is the argument for a source format made of small files.

Draw an O, and you meet curves, overshoot, and extremes. Then an accented glyph, which you build rather than draw: see Components and Anchors and the recipes in Workflows.