How Are Fonts Made and How to Make Yours

You've typed in Poppins a hundred times. Maybe Arial, Helvetica, or Tahoma too. But have you ever stopped to wonder how these fonts are made? Like, where do those letterforms come from and how do they end up on your screen?

Here's how it works and a way to make yours at the end 😉

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How Fonts Are Actually Made

1. It Starts on Paper (or a Tablet)

Every font begins as drawn letterforms. Type designers sketch each character, every curve, stroke, and look is drawn out.

2. Vectorization

The sketches get digitized into vector outlines usually in tools like Glyphs App, FontForge, or RoboFont. Each character (called a glyph) is made up of anchor points and bezier curves.

This is why fonts scale perfectly at any size. They're mathematical curves, not pixels.

3. Spacing & Kerning

Once the glyphs are drawn, the designer sets:

• Advance width — how much horizontal space each character occupies
• Kerning pairs — custom spacing adjustments between specific letter combinations (like "AV" or "To") that would look awkward with default spacing

This step takes a while and often takes longer than drawing the letters themselves.

4. OpenType Features

Modern fonts are packaged as OpenType (.otf) or TrueType (.ttf) files. Inside, designers can encode features like ligatures (when two letters merge into one glyph — think "fi" or "fl"), stylistic alternates, small caps, and contextual substitutions. This is what separates a basic font from a variable one (like Robinco)

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How to Make Yours

All these technicalities are for the pros. You don't have to do any of that to create yours. HandFonted makes it pretty straightforward.

Write out your characters on plain white paper with a dark pen, snap a photo, and upload it. Their AI detects and segments each character, converts them to vector glyphs, and gives you a .ttf file ready to install. No templates, no signup, no fuss. Works in Photoshop, MS Word... everywhere.

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Tips to Get a Good Result

• Use a dark pen or felt-tip — Ballpoints are too faint and the AI will struggle
• Leave space between characters so the tool can tell them apart properly
• Write clearly and cleanly - This makes it easier to get your handwriting font better.