Illustrator features

Develop your new favorite font design.

With Adobe Illustrator, you can put words that matter in a custom font or typeface that stands out on the page and the screen. Serif or sans serif fonts, handwriting, or tattoos — whatever your typography inspiration — it’s time to make your font a reality.

Start free trial Buy now

Create custom fonts.

Finding the right words can be hard, and so can finding the right type design. But Illustrator can help you create custom letterforms and fonts that fit your unique layout and design.

style

grid width 8

Personalize each object.

Help your words stand out with variable fonts from Adobe Originals, available in Illustrator’s font menu. Choose an existing font to kick off your design process, then adjust the weight, width, or slant of the type.

Start with a sketch.

Get the exact look you want by drawing freehand in Illustrator or by importing hand lettering or digital art from Adobe Photoshop.

Refine your work.

Use Image Trace to transform your imported font sketch into an easily edited vector graphic. Tweak it for legibility and shape each letter to get the unique typographic look you want.

Build out your ideas.

With third-party plug-ins to help you finalize and manage fonts, it’s easy to add a new style to your toolbox and apply it to new graphic design projects.

style

M spacing

Take advantage of these typography tools.

Find a font style that fits your work or turn to other graphic designers for typography design inspiration.

style

grid width 10

Image by Mark Simonson

Import your favorites.

Use your font creation — or choose from over 17,000 high-quality fonts you can activate from Adobe Fonts — across the Adobe Creative Cloud in Photoshop, XD, or Premiere.

Sync with Adobe Stock.

With Stock assets, you can quickly find inspiration, start new projects, and use Stock as a basis for a new custom font.

style

Two up

style

L spacing

How to make a font.

With some creativity and these simple steps, you can learn to create a new font with Illustrator.

Draw it:
Sketch out the letters by hand.
Import it:
Scan and vectorize the letters in Illustrator to capture the distinct line length, ascenders, and descenders.
Tweak it:
Refine and organize the letters to get the exact look, readability, and kerning you want.
Save it:
Save the glyph and export it using additional plug-ins.
Use it:
Put that brand-new font to good use in your next design.