My first shot at typography

I came across this site that lets you create a usable font from your own handwriting. So I spent the past few nights scribbling characters on this nice triangular graph paper I have. You just enter the characters onto their template, upload it and the characters are extracted immediately. Then you just download the .ttf and install it.

The one I made is called Lean1 because the letters all lean somewhat and it's my first attempt. It looks like a first attempt; too simple and too stylized but overall, I'm happy with it. Here's a sample.



The lower-case letters are based on my actual handwriting. The capitals, numbers and punctuation are based on a style I used...back in the day with descenders wherever possible and serifs that reach into the 2nd dimension. The style on some of the caps throws off the kerning but I'll clean them up for Lean2.

Click here to download Lean1.

In order to make sure the characters have a uniform style but remain distinguishable from each other, I though a grid that juxtaposes similar letters either vertically or horizontally might come in handy. Something like this.

X % / * & @ 0 _ =
$ J U C G Q O D -
S ! 1 I L F E B 8
5 7 N M A H K R .
? 2 Z W V Y T P ,
3 c e o z s h k :
4 # + t f r n m ;
6 b d x l i u w '
9 p q a g j y v "
^ ( ) < > [ ] { }
\ | ` ~