Figure 1. The three varieties of straight pen paths. The black line is the path and the gray
shaded area is what the finished pen stroke will look like.
by Gary J. Shannon
Introduction
Font making programs can be intimidating to say the least. Outlines have to be laboriously drawn and traced, curves have to be defined, and each glyph assigned to an ASCII keyboard character. They are best used when the font has already been designed on paper or with a drafting program and the resulting bitmaps can be imported to the font maker for reference. But as an interactive creative tool for inventing new foreign, fantasy, or alien alphabets they leave a great deal to be desired.
The purpose of TinkerFont is to provide an easy-to-use graphical alphabet creation tool for people who are intersting in inventing new alphabets for constructed languages, fantasy games, science fiction stories, or any other purpose for which a different, non-Roman alphabet is desired. It works like plugging together components, like a child's Tinker Toy® construction set. Each piece is designed to connect to any other piece in a variety of ways, and the TinkerFont interface is designed to make selection and placement of these components as simple as possible. Once the components have been placed for all the letters of the desired alphabet the resulting images are automatically translated into a True Type font file ready for use with any word processor that allows the use of fonts.
Font Style
The pieces used in construction of TinkerFont alphabets resemble calligraphy rather than typesetting. In the future more variations may be made available, but for now the fonts will necessarily have a pen-and-ink flavor to them. The components themselves represent a certain path traced by a broad-nib calligraphic pen point. In the graphical interface the path is shown in black while the final pen stroke is shown in gray. In the actual font produced the entire character image is solid black. Components are aligned with paths joining end to end so that the resulting pen strokes will have a natural feel to them.
Component Types - Straight Lines
The most basic component is the straight line. These come in three varieties, orthagonal (i.e. vertical or horizontal), diagonal, and long diagonal. All other components are designed to fit end-to-end with one of these three line types. The eight straight pen paths are shown in figure 1.
Figure 1. The three varieties of straight pen paths. The black line
is the path and the gray
shaded area is what the finished pen stroke will look like.
Component Types - Circles
There are three different sizes of circles. To make these pen paths more versatile each circle has been broken into four quadrants. The circles with an even size (two and four grid cells) are broken along their sides and the circle with the odd size (three grid cells) is broken at the 45-degree angle locations so that they mate with any piece that has a diagonal endpoint. Figure 2 shows the twelve circular pen path components.
Figure 2. The circular pen path components.
Circular components can mate with other circular components or with straight or diagonal components as desired. Firgure 3 demonstrates some ways in which they can be assembled. Also, the top and bottom quadrants fo the medium circle can be joined, fat side to fat side to form a long tilde, or a long wavy line. (See the samples section below).
Figure 3. Circle components mated with other
circle pieces and straight or diagonal lines.
Note the fully blackened pen stroke in
The small version of this sample.
Notice in the top of figure 3 that the two small circle pieces are mated with their curves pointing in opposite directions and then the top segment joins with the larger circle component which curves down and to the right. Likewise, the medium circle components are formed into a circle with the right quadrant replaced by two diagonal lines. As long as the endpoint angle is proper the pieces will fit together seemlessly. If the endpoint angles do not match then there will be a "bump" or a jog, or even a point in the line where the segments meet. This may be desired and is permissable as in figure 3 where the two diagonal lines meet at a point.
Component Types - Ovals
The oval is the first cousin to the cirlce and all the same rules apply. There is only one size of oval and the eight oval components are shown in figure 4.
Figure 4. The eight oval components. These all mate with orthagonal
lines.
Components Types - Orthagonal to Diagonal Corners
These pieces look very similar to the oval pieces, but don't be fooled by them. They do not join to make a smooth oval, but will make an oval with pointed corners. This is because these pieces are designed not to mate with each other, but to transition smoothly between a component with a diagonal endpoint and one with an orthagonal endpoint. The eight OD corners are shown in figure 5.
Figure 5. The OD (Orthagonal to Diagonal) corner pieces.
To demonstrate the difference between the ovals and the OD corners figure 6 shows both connected to another of its type and to a diagonal line. On the left is the oval piece and on the right is the OD corner. The difference is clear in this setting.
Figure 6. On the left is the oval piece joined to a diagonal
(above) and to another oval (below). On the right, the same is done
with the OD corner piece. Notice the difference.
As always, you may join components with non-matching endpoint angles to deliberately create different effects such as the peaked top of the lower right example in figure 6.
Component Types - Long Diagonal Corners.
The LD corners make the transition from a long diagonal endpoint to another long diagonal endpoint (or any endpoint meant to mate with a long diagonal), or to an orthagonal endpoint.
Figure 7. LD corners join long diagonals to other long diagonals or to orthagonals.
Figure 8 demonstrate a few possible uses of the LD corners.
Figure 8. A few examples of LD corners in use.
Component Types - U-Turns
U-Turn pieces make it possible to round off what would otherwise bee a sharp corner where two angled lines meet. Thes are shown in Figure 9. Their use should be self-evident. Howeverthey can also be used to create wavy lines and tildes.
Figure 9. The twelve U-Turn components.
Component Types - Crossovers
A crossover connects two orthagonal lines that are offset by one grid cell. Figure 10 shows the four crossovers.
Figure 10. The four crossover pieces.
It would be possible to add crossovers to join offset diagonal and offset long diagonal lines as well, but these are not yet a part of the TinkerFont inventory of shapes. They may be added later if they prove useful.
Samples Showing Component Combinations
Components can be pasted together in an amazing variety of ways. The figures below wshow just a few of the ways these pieces can be used. Figure 12 shows the small circle component mated to another small circle, but pointed in the opposite direction. It also shows the small circle connected to a large circle piece. Below that on the left are two samples of hooking a small circle to a vertical oval. It could also be attached to the horizontal oval pieces (as shown in figure 13). Finally, the figure shows the small circle piece connected to an OD corner. Many more combinations are possible.
Figure 12. A few samples using the small circle piece.
Figure 13. Small circle piece on top joined to
horizontal oval piece below.
The circular pieces can also be joined to pieces that do not have matching endpoint angles. Figure 14 show some circle pieces used with orthagonal and diagonal lines with non-matching angles creating sharp corners in the figure.
Figure 14. Circle pieces joined with
non-matching endpoint angles.
(Feb. 25, 2005 To be conrtinued)