Analog or digital--how do YOU start a glyph?
http://www.typophile.com/cgibin/show.pl?4101/36168

Inspiration
http://www.typophile.com/cgibin/show.pl?30/41658

Notes on type design
The skills of designing letters can be learned,
just like other skills. The techniques of fitting them
together are no secret. The tools are better than they
used to be. Alchemy probably helps, but managing without
that is the purpose of orderly work. You can digitize
almost any shape you imagine.
http://briem.ismennt.is/2/2.3.1a/2.3.1.01.notes.htm

Who's the guy in this picture, Alessandro?

"Zapf had a very strong calligraphy background. When he lectured to my sophomore year typography class, he would write quite beautiful Roman letters on a blackboard using the side of a piece of chalk held at an angle like a flat-pen. " ChrisL

http://www.typophile.com/forums/messages/30/42469.html?1092622363

Once you actually start making font outlines, it is a good idea to start with letters that define basic proportions and spacing, e.g. the lowercase n and o. But when working out initial design ideas, it is best to start with the letters that will give the design most of its character. This will vary depending on the design, but often it will be the lowercase a, e, and g.

Ivan,

Also check out Briem's site. Walter Tracy's great 'Letters of Credit' (see the book section here at typophile - they should have a link) will initiate you in the mysteries of glyph width and spacing, but nobody understands it fully.

Ivan, there can be no strict rules, but good guidelines there can.

In terms of character sequence, it's true that personal preference is a huge factor, but it also seems that text fonts benefit from starting with the "bland" characters (like "n") while display fonts benefit from starting with the more "flavorful" characters (like the "a"). Also, it might be smart to favor the more frequent letters (like "e").

And in terms of width, I think these things are useful to consider:
1) Generally, wide fonts seem more friendly and warm but also provincial, while narrow fonts appear more strict, cold and elegant.
2) Narrow fonts fit more text in the visual span of the eyes, helping reading.
3) Fonts that are too narrow however converge the widths of boumas too much, slowing reading.
4) For setting single lines (like headlines, or phone book listings), or where you'd like to reduce hyphens (especially in narrow columns) narrow fonts have an obvious advantage.
5) However, narrowness isn't necessarily more economical in running setting, because you can just as well save space (in the vertical instead of the horizontal dimension) by using a wider font at a smaller point size (maintaining apparent size) - it depends on a few things, including the proportion of paragraph breaks you have in the text.
6) At smaller point sizes (like below 9), width (and looseness) help readability.

hhp