How To Make Your Own Font

This simple and easy tutorial for how to make your own font will show you two ways to create a font, including Procreate, and have you typing in your own fonts in no time.

Have you ever wanted to make your own fonts? I have.

But who wants to pay for expensive software to try it out? Not this girl.

I went on the hunt and I found a site that makes it super simple to turn your own handwriting into fonts. Plus, it’s FREE!

I’m going to show you two ways to create your font. You either need a printer or an iPad with Procreate.

All you have to do is go to Calligraphr and create an account.

They offer a free version or you can pay for more features.

The paid version is only $8 a month, so if there are some features that greatly interest you then you could try it out for less than $10.

Some of the features you get with the paid account are:

Amount of fonts – The free version only allows you to work on one font at a time while the paid version you can work on up to 12 at a time.

More characters – You can do up to 480 characters in a single font.

Ligatures – the lines connecting letters

Character Randomization – you can make multiple of letters so when you type them together you will have slightly different letters. For instance, in the word butter, the two Ts would be slightly different.

Individual Character Spacing – If you want to change the spacing of individual characters so that the letters following it are closer or further away. The examples they give are T and P. If you change theirs you can make it so letters following them will start under the top of the T and under the curve of the P.

Metadata – On the paid account you can also add metadata. So things like licensing descriptions and copyright notices.

Then you can choose the type of font you want to make. They currently support English, French, German, Spanish, and Japanese.

The free version gets you 75 glyphs per font.

So 26 capital letters and 26 lowercase letters leaves you up to 23 more glyphs.

You can choose which you would like. You could do punctuations, numbers, symbols or a combination thereof.

When you have your chosen set you can generate your template. You can choose if you a PDF or PNG, what size you want, and if you want guidelines or a grayed out letter in the box.

Open it and check that the sizing is good and that everything you wanted is there.

You can resize it according to your preference. Maybe you want it all to fit on one page. Maybe you want bigger boxes.

I like to have the guidelines because it helps me to keep the letters the same scale and on the same line.

I haven’t used the grayed out letters, but I can see how they would help for sizing purposes.

Then you simply print it out.

How to create your own font using a printer

Once you have your page or pages printed, all you have to do is fill them in.

You can use whatever writing utensil you choose.

Pencil, pen, brush pen, marker, maybe even crayon.

I would choose a darker color because that is what will help your finished product look the best.

When you have all the boxes filled in you simply take a photo of the paper. Be sure that all four of the corner markers are in the picture.

You can also scan it if your printer has a scanner.

Then you simply go to Calligraphr, sign in, and choose “My Fonts” from the top toolbar. Under there is “Upload Template”. You attach your file and let it do its thing.

Now you can make any adjustments including font size, letter spacing, or word spacing.

If you click on a letter you can edit it individually. There is a brush and an eraser tool in case there is something that you want to fix.

You can also adjust the baseline of each glyph in the font. So if you want more of a bounce to it you can do that here. Or if you want it more lined up you can do that too.

If you click “Build Font” you can see a preview of your font. You can even type in the bottom of the window and see how beautiful your new font is.

I love that Calligrapgr gives you the option to download a ttf or an otf file. So you are getting a fully finished font with minimal effort on your part.

How to Create Your Own Font In Procreate

If you have an iPad that you can use the Apple Pencil with then you can make your own fronts in the Procreate app.

The great thing about using Procreate is there are so many brush options.

It comes with several and there are tons that you can get to import into the app. A great place to check for Procreate brushes is Creative Market.

You can also easily redo strokes until you get the letters to look just right.

If you don’t like how slippery the pen can be on the screen, I bought this screen protector for my iPad Pro to make the screen feel less slick when I used the pencil.

When you create your template simply save it as the PNG option and import it into Procreate.

If you have never done that before there is an import option up in the right-hand corner of Procreate. Simply find the file and open it up.

Once it is open, make a new layer to write on. This is very important.

If you don’t make a new layer then any erasing you might do will erase part of the template.

When you are done creating your font simply save it and then upload it to Calligraphr the same way that I explained above.

And that’s it! You have created your own font.

How fun is that?

How to Make A Font From Your Child’s Handwriting

I had my son write one for me to start the school year. I plan to have him make one each year so that we can see how his handwriting has progressed.

It’s such a fun keepsake. It would be great for a gift for grandma.

Or a fun thing to do at a family party. Then everyone can create and share their custom fonts.

If you want to use your custom fonts in Cricut Design Space I have a whole post on how to use your own fonts. Be sure to check it out.