Overview

When I first started to distribute my fonts on the internet there were about a dozen type foundries on the World Wide Web. Now there are hundreds. The popularity of the independent internet-based type foundry has exploded since I originally published this online tutorial in 1996. Any competent designer can make a handful of fonts, build a web page to display them, and boom! there's another new font company.

With so many designers starting their own online "foundries," there are a lot of people wondering how they can do it themselves. Chank.com visitors write to me saying "Chank, I've loved the alphabet my whole life and I've got a million ideas for fonts floating around in my head and I was wondering if you could tell me how you make your fonts so I could make some for myself."

Okay. Fine. I'll let the secret out. This tutorial explains my personal font-making technique. It may not be the academically approved typographic design process, but it works for me, and it can be done on any Mac or PC with the proper software installed. You've been working with the alphabet since you were a small child. Now you can make a font of your own.

Let's get started!