As a font editing and creation tool, Macromedia's Fontographer 4.1 can go a long way toward creating the myriad fonts digital artists need to accomplish the right look for each project. It provides the ability to create custom fonts, either by freehand drawing, using drawing tools, or by importing images to use as templates.At its heart, it is a vector drawing application designed to build fonts. The main drawing window features the usual selection of vector drawing tools, but it also has guidelines for drawing ascending and descending letter shapes and for ensuring even letter spacing. There's also a very nice freehand calligraphy drawing pen with pressure sensitivity for drawing strokes manually.
If you aren't up to creating your own font from scratch, you can import an existing font and modify it by changing letter shapes, kerning, tracking, etc. Each shape has a set of control points that can be tweaked and curved.
Fontographer is straightforward in use, and an ideal tool for the extremely dedicated artist who wants full control over everything. However, one of the best parts of the package is not the software, but the manual itself. "Using Fontographer" is nearly 350 pages of information not only on how to use the program, but on designing fonts themselves. Good font design is not to be taken lightly, and the manual/information guide is chock full of tips and guides and information on how to create quality fonts.
If you can't find the right font for the job, or you have a burning desire to learn the difference between a font, face, and family, Fontographer might be the tool you are looking for. --Mike Caputo
