With the advent of high resolution “retina” displays, keeping bitmap images sharp and crisp on the web has meant using larger and thus more bandwidth-hungry images. At the same time, more and more people are browsing on mobile devices where bandwidth is at a premium.

One solution to this problem is scalable vector graphics (SVG) since they scale infinitely while keeping the file size low. However, now that web fonts are widely supported, symbol fonts like Dingbats or WebDings provide another option for tack sharp symbols used in icons or buttons. Fonts are also very flexible. For example, using CSS you can easily change the size, color, add drop shadows or other text effects.

But what happens when symbol typefaces don’t have the symbols you need? Well, make your own of course! Today I am going to show you how make your own symbol font using some freely available software and tools, which you can then easily embed in a web page and use in your design comps.