Font templates | Comprehensive knowledge base

Introduction

Font templates are pre-designed layouts or frameworks for creating fonts. These templates provide a starting point for designing new typefaces and help designers maintain consistency in style. Graphic designers, typographers, or anyone involved in font creation can use font templates as a foundation for designs to make tailored fonts. This can save time and create a structured framework for font creation.

Content of font templates

Font templates may include:

• Character set including uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, punctuation marks, and special characters.
• Grids and guidelines for consistent character widths, heights, and spacing to ensure font readability.
• Variations of strokes for different weights and styles of the font, such as regular, bold, italic, and condensed.
• OpenType features like ligatures, alternate characters, and stylistic sets.
• Predefined kerning pairs to ensure proper spacing between specific character combinations.
• Sample text to demonstrate how the font looks in context.

Types of font templates

Here are a few types of font templates that can be useful for designers:

Glyph Template

It is a pre-designed framework or outline used in font design to create individual characters, symbols, or glyphs within a typeface. They serve as guides for designers to maintain consistency in proportions, strokes, and overall style across all characters.

Glyph templates typically include:

• Basic shapes such as rectangles, circles, or lines that serve as building blocks for constructing characters.
• Outlines or skeletons of characters that indicate the general shape and proportions of each glyph.
• Guidelines for stem widths and spacing between characters. They help ensure uniformity and readability within the typeface.
• The template often includes guidelines for character proportions, ensuring that each glyph maintains consistency in height, width, and stroke thickness.
• Stroke variations for different weights or styles of the font, such as regular, bold, italic, or condensed.
• Guidelines for the baseline (the imaginary line on which characters sit) and cap height (the height of uppercase letters). They help maintain vertical alignment and balance within the typeface.

Character Set Template

Character set templates are pre-designed frameworks used to create a complete set of characters, symbols, and glyphs within a typeface. They provide a structured starting point for designers to develop all the necessary characters for a font, ensuring consistency and coherence across the entire character set. Designers can customize and refine each character within the template to create a unique and cohesive font that meets their design objectives.

Character set templates typically include:

• Uppercase and lowercase letters of the alphabet, covering all letters from A to Z.
• Numbers from 0 to 9.
• Common punctuation marks like periods, commas, exclamation marks, question marks, and quotation marks.
• Special characters like currency symbols, mathematical symbols, etc.
• Diacritics and accents for supporting various languages which ensure multilingual compatibility.
• Some templates may include ligatures.
• They may provide alternate versions of certain characters.
• Character set templates may include spacing guidelines and predefined kerning pairs.

Typeface Sketch

Typeface sketches are preliminary drawings or outlines created by designers during the initial stages of typeface design. They are rough drafts or blueprints for developing the overall design and typeface characteristics.

Here’s what typeface sketches typically involve:

• Basic shapes of individual letters, including uppercase and lowercase characters, numerals, punctuation marks, and other glyphs.
• Proportions of characters, such as the x-height (the height of lowercase letters), cap height (the height of uppercase letters), and ascenders/descenders (the parts of letters that extend above or below the x-height).
• Stroke thickness and weight variations across different parts of the letters, such as stems, serifs (if applicable), and terminals.
• Font types(serif, sans-serif, script, display, etc.) and personality of the typeface. They may also explore characteristics like geometric shapes, calligraphic strokes, or decorative elements.
• Designers may indicate basic spacing between characters to ensure readability and aesthetic harmony. Kerning adjustments may also be suggested to improve the spacing between specific letter pairs.
• Typeface sketches are often iterative, allowing designers to explore different design directions, experiment with variations, and refine the overall look and typeface feel.

The image below shows the font sketch made in Google Drawing, but you can make it with any convenient tool or even with a pen and paper.

Variable Font Template

Variable font templates are frameworks or starting points for creating variable fonts, - font format type that allows for variation in weight, width, slant, and other attributes along a continuous spectrum. Variable fonts are useful for responsive design and typographic flexibility, as they can adapt to different display sizes and user preferences.

Variable font templates often include:

• One or more axes along which the font can vary. Common axes include weight, width, slant, optical size, and more.
• Master designs, which are extreme points on the axes of variation. The template may include multiple masters to represent different weights, widths, or other variations.
• Design space that represents all possible variations within the font. The template outlines the boundaries of this space and provides guidelines for designing intermediate instances.
• Outlines or sketches of the glyphs (characters) in the font that serve as the basis for generating all the variations along the defined axes.
• The template may provide guidelines for how glyph shapes interpolate between different masters.
• Advanced typographic features like ligatures, alternate glyphs, and stylistic sets. The template may include support for these features, allowing designers to define variations in such features across the design space.
• Some templates may include tools or guidelines for testing and evaluating the variable font, ensuring that variations behave as expected across different platforms and environments.

Script Font Template

For script or handwritten fonts, templates may include guidelines for creating fluid and consistent letterforms. These templates help maintain a natural flow and rhythm in the handwritten style.

Calligraphy Templates

Calligraphy font templates provide guidelines for creating letters in various calligraphy styles. These templates help users practice and master the art of calligraphy for font design.

Serif and Sans-serif Template

Templates specific to serif or sans-serif fonts may include guidelines for creating the distinctive features of each type. Designers can use these templates to ensure their fonts adhere to the characteristics of the chosen style.

Web Font Template

Web font templates are frameworks or tools used to optimize and prepare fonts for use on the web ensuring them render consistently and efficiently across various web browsers and devices. Web font templates simplify the process of using custom fonts on the web, making it easier for designers to enhance the typography of their websites.

Here’s what web font templates typically include:

• Font files in formats suitable for web use, such as WOFF (Web Open Font Format) and WOFF2. These formats are compressed and optimized for faster loading times and better compatibility with web browsers.
• Fallback font stack to ensure that if the web font fails to load, the browser can display an alternative font.
• CSS files with @font-face rules, which define how the web font should be imported and applied to HTML elements on a web page for proper integration and styling of the web font across the website.
• Character Subsets that include only the characters needed for their website. This reduces the font file size and improves performance.
• Some web font templates include hinting and optimization techniques to improve the legibility and rendering of fonts, especially on low-resolution screens or at smaller font sizes.
• Web font templates often include licensing information, ensuring that designers comply with the font license terms when using the font on their websites.
• Templates may also include responsive design considerations, allowing fonts to adapt to different screen sizes and resolutions seamlessly.

Font Family Template

Font family templates are comprehensive and cover various styles and weights within a single typeface family. Designers can use these templates to ensure consistency across different variations of the font.

License Template

License templates are frameworks or documents that include the terms and conditions under which a font can be used, distributed, and modified. They help font creators or foundries specify the licensing info for their fonts in a clear and standardized manner.

Here’s what license templates typically include:

• Usage rights to specify how the font can be used, such as for personal or commercial projects, web use, print, embedding in software, etc.
• Number of users allowed to use the font. It may vary depending on the license type (e.g., single-user, multi-user, enterprise).
• The template also outlines whether the font can be distributed and under what conditions. This includes whether it can be sold, shared, or distributed freely.
• If the font is to be embedded in documents or software, the license template may specify the allowed embedding methods and restrictions.
• Information on whether the font can be modified or adapted and under what conditions.
• Some licenses require attribution to the original font creator or foundry. The template may specify how attribution should be provided and where it should be displayed.
• The template may include info on whether modified or derivative versions of the font can be distributed and under what conditions.
• License fees.
• Exclusivity.
• The template may include disclaimers of warranty and limitations of liability to protect the font creator or foundry from legal claims.
• Conditions under which the license may be terminated, such as violation of terms or non-payment of fees.

Tools to create font templates

Creating font templates can be done using various tools, from specialized font design software to general graphic design programs. Here are some tools for creating font templates:

1. Glyphs - a professional font editor specifically designed for Mac. It offers a wide range of features for designing fonts, including customizable templates.
2. FontLab - a font editor available for both Mac and Windows. It provides tools for designing, editing, and exporting fonts, including templates for various font styles and formats.
3. FontForge - an open-source font editor that offers template creation and customization options.
4. Adobe Illustrator - a popular vector graphics editor that can be used to create font templates. Designers can create outlines of characters, define spacing, and export templates in various formats.
5. Adobe Photoshop - can be used to create bitmap font templates or to sketch out initial designs for characters. While not as common for font design as Illustrator, it can still be useful in the early stages of font creation.