-
很多人问我字体设计的过程是怎样的，我一般就简单的说先手绘然后钢笔勾。其实也就是这样。重
要的是
你要有满意的手绘稿，然后再加上满意的后期软件处理，还有必不可少的，欣赏你
的客户。这个过程可以
很快，也会很漫长。刚好在网上闲逛，看到这位仁兄的一个字体过
程，虽然是英文，但是道理一样，我就
不客气了，拿来大家分了，我们要赶紧进步赶上他
们的水平，这样我就不用总翻译英文的教程，就需要他
们翻译我们中文的教程了，哈哈，
期待这一天
……
好了，废话不说了，开始吧！！！
I'm often
asked how I get the jobs I do. Well like any
business I have to advertise in
one way
or another to my target demographic. That is
creative directors and
marketing
people. I ran this ad in a west coast trade
publication and the marketing
director
for Lifetime saw my ad, loved the
Pepsi
and hired me to develop the Christmas promotion
for their
essentially I had to spend
around $$250 dollars to land this job.
我
的这个
case
是从哪来的呢？就是从这个杂志上。客户看到了
杂志上刊登的我为百事公司设计的字体，
于是就找到了我。让我帮他设计一个圣诞节用的
字体
“
Fa La La La Lifetime.
”
。佣金
250
美元。
（
也不是很多啊，哈哈
）
Knowing my client
desired to have a specific styling for their
project meant I didn't
have to explore
a wide range of appropriate type styles. So I just
began working out
the details of for
the wording
on various letterforms and
playing with the shapes.
知道了
客户的喜好，
我就很快明确了设计方向，
也就不需要设计很多风
格。
然后
就潦草的勾出大概的样子。（
我们每次一提就
3
、
4
个，不行还要重新来过，最
后客户选花了眼，都不知道自己要什么，悲哀
）
Once I determine a direction or vibe
for where I want to go I then begin to refine it
and shape it until I have a finalized
refined sketch I can then scan in and build from
in
my drawing program. I was after a
festive feel and felt the lettering needed to read
like a sing song voice of
sorts.
一旦方向有了，
我就开
始不断调整，
直到我觉得可以拿去扫描为止。
这个方向就
是节日的感觉，让人觉得这文字就像歌声一样，婉转动人。
After scanning in my
refined drawing I place it into my drawing program
and begin to
build my vector shapes.
There is no guess work, I'm just following what
I've drawn
out beforehand. I guess you
could say I'm manually tracing my drawing in
vector
form.
My build
process is a combination of point by point path
building and shape building.
On the
letter
any sense to try and build that
point by point, you risk it looking hinky.
I continue this methodology until I
have all my basic paths complete. Remember at
this point make a copy of your paths
and put it on a layer that is turned off. This
will
server you in building other
content as you progress and be vector insurance in
case
you mess something up along the
way.
扫描好了，就开始画矢量了，也就是钢笔勾。钢笔勾
，一般有用点勾，和用几何
形状，比如
a
和
s
我就用椭圆形工具画个椭圆作参考。
（
最好这样，不然做出来
曲线不圆润。还有就是钢笔勾最好
不要用“alt”断点的方式，这样虽然看起来
方便但是做出来的东西经不起放大看。切
记切记！
）
When building vector
shapes an easy way to figure out where to place
the points is to
think of the shape as
a clock. For example this loop of the
o'clock, the right 3 o'clock, bottom 6
o'clock, left 9 o'clock and so forth. There are
exceptions to this rule but I'll be
doing another tutorial on this process
building curved shapes like this the
key part to keep your bezier handles parallel to
one another and at 90 degrees. Like any
rules there are exceptions but in more cases
than not it will apply.
在用钢笔工具也就是贝塞尔曲线的时候，
在哪放点是很重要的。
我一般把外形看
做一个钟。比如这个“L”的拐角处，上面是
12
点，下面是
6
点。<
/p>
（
恩，点的位
置是重要的，外形如果总是
不满意，就要去调整点的外置了。
）
creating compound paths
with your vector shapes you'll notice that on
shapes like the
letterform
you'll have to fix that
in order to make it look like the
letterform overlaps itself.
This is the
part of vector building that requires some true
craft and skill. There is no
tool or
pull down menu that will do this, it requires some
good eyeballing to create the
shapes
you need to punch out the gaps necessary to give
the illusion of depth in your
design.
A smart designer will pull a copy of
the
from that inset it to help create
the content needed. This is where you'll have to
explore and figure it out on your own,
I'm just showing you the end result of how I
arrived at my punch out.
把路径
复合后，发现
“L”
交叉的地方没有了交叉的感觉。所以就需要
调整一下，
让他有交叉重叠的感觉。
这就不是死的东西了，
需要你自己去感觉，
用你慧眼去
看，需要在
哪里断开，断多少，怎么断。
你够聪明的话就会多复制一个没
有断开的
L
，
以免你断的感觉不好，<
/p>
后面要修改。
（
一定要记住备份最初的源
文件，以免重新来过的时候抓狂。还有就是你的眼
力，一个出色的设计师眼睛是要比鹰还
要敏锐的，放很大很大看细节，放很小
看感觉。
）
Once I have all my
final paths done I drop in the color I want to
use. At this point I
continue to make
any visual adjustments to balance the overall logo
type. You'll
notice subtle changes with
each new incarnation.
Working digitally
to me means I should be making any revisions to
improve my
design as I progress through
each stage. I may draw it out beforehand but that
doesn't
mean there isn't room to
improve it as I build the art.
< br>有了形，就可以填颜色了。但是在填颜色的同时，还是要进行调整，这个调整可
能
是很细微的
（
有时候山寨客户是注意不到的，
< br>碰到不注重细节的客户，
这样真
是浪费时间，但是在我手
里出来的东东又不能不负责，每次都是纠结中把细节
做的满满的，自己安心就好了，对细
节没要求的人，最多只能叫操作员，不是
设计师
）。