Fonts and text-related creative tasks

Fixing problems
We have a list of identified problems in Fedora or in the upstreams Fedora depends on. If you have the time and the skill, fixing them would help the Fedora text and font situation a lot.

Also our desktop like every *nix desktop has an input language awareness problem.

Font creation
The best way to try one's hand at font creation, and learn the (technical and organisational) ropes, is to contribute some time to a free/open font project, such as the ones listed on this page.

Most free/open font projects fail not because of author lack of artistic taste, but because they do not attract contributors or distributors. Free/open font dynamics are very different from proprietary font dynamics, and usually not taught in art school.

To start working on fonts just install the font-design group (available in Fedora 11 and later).


 * 1) yum groupinstall font-design

Font hinting
Good font hinting is required for fonts to render well on computer screens with limited pixel density. Many fonts only sport limited hinting. The fine DejaVu authors published a hinting tutorial to guide people wishing to remedy this.