Reason to use only horizontal and vertical handles when lettering with pen

[lindentree]

I was watching a tutorial on how to digitize hand lettering and noticed the instructor held the shift key to create only vertical and horizontal handles on the anchor points. I noticed that other tutorials also mentioned to only create vertical and horizontal handles as well. What is the reason for this, and is there a benefit to maintaining them and not having them at other angles?

[Kurt Gold]

That obviously depends on the context.

It is rather hard to tell anything about it without knowing the reasons for this postulation.

Can you clarify a bit ?

[lindentree]

Here's a screenshot from the tutorial I was following. I am trying to do the same thing - vectorizing a word I have written by hand using the pen tool. As you can see, the handles present are only horizontal.

[Monika Gause]

It makes some sense with letterings and a lot more sense when creating fonts.

The reason for fonts is a technical one. You can find reasons for that on font design apps' websites, such as: https://glyphsapp.com/learn/drawing-good-paths

http://designwithfontforge.com/en-US/Using_the_Fontforge_Drawing_Tools.html

It also has benefits for designing such as when you want to edit the weight of the line.

In some situations it is just not possible to only have vertical/horizontal handles and also I would never turn it into a religion.

[lindentree]

Ok, thanks for the info! 🙂 If you wouldn't mind explaining, how does having vertical/horizontal handles help with editing line weight? Sorry, I'm quite a newbie. Thanks!

[Monika Gause · Accepted solution]

When it's just a stroke as in your case, it won't matter. But when the stroke has been expanded and it's a shape, then it will be a gamechanger.

This is simple

[Monika Gause]

[Monika Gause]

Compared to this:

Sorry for the messed post, but that was my only possibility to post these images at all.

[lindentree]

Ah, I get it now. Thank you so much! 🙂

[Monika Gause]

You're welcome!