1. What glyphs/characters do you create first? (I recall another designer telling me that he makes a certain set of glyphs first, because the rest of the font can then be made from the basics of those letters)

2. What special characters (other than foreign language character) do you like to include? Any that you never include?

3. How long do you guys spend kerning? I generally lose a whole weekend to it. Need to find a more streamlined method (I even use Kern King).

4. How much money, over the years, would you say your fonts have earned for you? I haven't made much, but ever tiny bit has come in handy.

-- J

1. the vowels
2. all accentend
3.about three days
4. don't need

1. Depends on the initial idea but it's always good to start with a few caps, then lowercases which sink bellow the baseline to get a feel of the overall design and if it works. 16 minutes into the movie "Helvetica" Matthew Carter explains how certain glyphs form the basis for many of the others e.g. "h" can form "n" and "u" and "p" can form "q" and "d", mind you this doesn't work for all type, handwritten type being the obvious one.

2. All the ones in the standard FontLab (ISO/Adobe) set.

3. Depends on the font, a few days solid work usually (without scripts, because I don't know how to use them).

4. My daFont fonts have earned about $20 AUD in Adsense (which is really $0 because $150 is the minimum until Google writes the check).

This is an interesting topic; it'd be great to see what others have to say.