DataLife Engine - Softnews Media Group

Magnus Rakeng, the designer of Radio, writes: ‘I regard my fonts basically as advanced phone-doodling. Most of the characters for my fonts are scribbled down by hand — using a ballpoint pen. Preferably a transparent Bic with black ink — in my sketchbook, or is worked out in my head before I got to sleep, just to define the general shapes.

I never scan the sketches, I just use them as guides when I recreate them in Illustrator or Fontographer. Then I draw as many characters as I can in Illustrator just to see how they work together. When I’m pleased with the overall look, I import the files into Fontographer/FontLab. Then I keep tweaking and refining till I get the shapes right.’