Screen cap; Baro Black Italic ligs in FontLab' Metrics window
Well, I'm just about ready let this guy out of the pen. Just little bit more kerning.
Really?
Really?
You might think you are all done with kerning? In fact, you are probably very far from it.
Making an italic is in part as obvious as it looks—Slant the letters a few degrees in a single batch operation. Boom!
Not so fast. In the case of Baro, I naturally finished the roman, version of Baro Black before starting the italic, so all the glyphs are there, and in their final form. Then I slanted it 12 degrees. After that, I went through the entire font and edited each glyph to correct distortions caused by slanting them. The most obvious correction needed was to the vertical gaps between parts of letters and figures and all of round shapes. Finally, I added tails to the 'f' 'f' ligatures and 'l's, made the 'a'; a single story and one or two other things to soften the font up.
Lastly came the metrics. The roman metrics were probably about 70% OK. That is another story, but there are extra kerning pairs to compensate for letter spacing which could have been better. It is what happens when you start one part of a job before you finish an earlier one. You become too invested in the the time that went into the second part and it ends up being more efficient to fix your letter spacing mistakes with additional kerning pairs. (This is my first completed font). The altered geometry threw everything else off. I re-did the letter spacing for the whole font pretty much from scratch. You know how it goes—You fix one thing problem and create two new ones. Replace all your old mistakes with brand new ones. Or it can seem that way. But, eventually, with enough patience, you get to a place where the end is in sight. Kerning should be all done tonight and Baro Black Italic will be on the market next week.
Lastly came the metrics. The roman metrics were probably about 70% OK. That is another story, but there are extra kerning pairs to compensate for letter spacing which could have been better. It is what happens when you start one part of a job before you finish an earlier one. You become too invested in the the time that went into the second part and it ends up being more efficient to fix your letter spacing mistakes with additional kerning pairs. (This is my first completed font). The altered geometry threw everything else off. I re-did the letter spacing for the whole font pretty much from scratch. You know how it goes—You fix one thing problem and create two new ones. Replace all your old mistakes with brand new ones. Or it can seem that way. But, eventually, with enough patience, you get to a place where the end is in sight. Kerning should be all done tonight and Baro Black Italic will be on the market next week.
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