Best Of

Isn’t the x-height thing just bullshit?

It could be, but if that is the case it is really old. The execution of several of the RE serif faces followed the general proportions of 6-7 point ATF and Linotype serif text faces, which had enlarged lower cases, not just x height. I.e. they are really wide and openly spaced as well. There is a picture of one of these on our mini site, fontbureau.com/readingedge.

The two most unbullshitic things about masters for small sizes is that they appear larger small and appear confused large, and second, when in the presence of low resolution, they gather more pixels for any given pixel per em than your average master.

As for the Pabloian 7, 8 or 9 px x ht, I would hesitate to add an absolute l.c. pixel ht to a font spec for small masters to avoid forcing all small masters into a mold. 7, an odd number, can sometimes prove more readable than 8, if 9 is just too big for some kind of text style, but we will see as more people do them.

And of course, we will see how these effect web font popularity lists as they each have their own offerings of specialty text faces... I assume...

My initial impression is that this font looks lousy. I've made some lousy fonts in my time so I sure can spot 'em. It's a font where some letters are creative and experimental and others and staid and old fashioned.

And don't put Museo down. Museo and Arial are examples of fonts which are maligned by people who will probably never make a font nearly as good as either of those. Font professionals know how good both of those fonts are so, go malign Museo on Reddit or something.

I don' t think you've committed to those seed letters enough. Instead of worrying whether or not you look like Museo, really think about harmonizing those other letters with the seed letters. If it turns out that you can't, then you need to go back an make compromises with your seed letters. The seed letter strategy can work but before you start, you'd better make sure those seed letters are at least consistent with one another. But let's assume that they are.

When you designed the V. You chose to put a full serif on the right. But your k, has already established an unseriffed treatment for that type of stroke. The left stroke doesn't have any precedent in the seed letters, so you can do whatever you like. But the right stroke, should follow the seed letter unless there's a practical reason why it shouldn't. Legibility can be a reason for making boring decisions, but you've already established with your g, that you intend to push the legibility boundaries a bit . . . why be so safe with the rest of the letters?

In the lowercase g, you've established that a certain type of hook that would lend itself to the top of the C, c and G, rather than the old-fashion treatment you went with. The S and s don't relate to the seed letters in any way.

Why did you decide to include serifs on the top left at the x-height of some of the lowercase letters? That doesn't harmonize with any of your seed characters and even makes them seem out of place. That mid-height ear on your g is interesting. Make sure the other letters play nicely with it.

In your lowercase g, you established a thicker stroke in the curve of the top left of the lower bowl. Yet this is the only place it shows up.

The curved tail on the Q doesn't relate to anything else in the font. Certainly not the seed letters.

The traditional, old-fashioned serif on the question mark doesn't relate to your seed letters.

When you do a font with seed letters, the process isn't much different than making a font based on a logo. You start with a set of well designed letters and you clean them up, you alter them to make sure they harmonize with one another in any combination. Then you add a letter. You it in different combinations and ensure that it harmonizes with the seed letters and gradually, you end up with an alphabet where everything works together. But when you start making decisions based on factors other that those seed letters, you start to run into trouble. That when you have to decide whether or not you're going to go back and make some compromises with those seed letters, or work harder to come up with a better idea. For example, if a V with no serif on the left stroke looks bad next to an A with serifs on both sides, maybe you have to rethink the A? Maybe a square A, a humped A or an A nobody's thought of yet.

The Font Testing Page is a tool primarily intended for type designers and independent foundries. It can also be used by art directors, graphic designers, teachers and students interested in seeing how a typeface works on the web.

There is a short video at:


Operation is simple:
- First, you must accept the request from the browser.
- Then drag the font you want to try to the upper area of the Testing Page.

Below you will find 8 buttons: Headlines, Text, Lowercase Only, Adhesion Only, Caps, All Caps, Layout and Kern.
- Headlines: Displays examples: 72, 60, 48, 36 and 30 to 12.
- Text: Displays text blocks, from 20 to 10.
- Lowercase only: Displays examples of 72, 60, 48, 36, 30, 24, 18 and 16 to 10.
- Adhesion only: Shows examples using only 'adhesion' text. Intended for the early stages on a typeface design.
- Caps: Displays examples of words in Sentence Case at 60.
- All Caps: Displays examples of words in All-Caps at 60.
- Layout: Displays examples of Headline, Subhead and Body text.
- Kern: Displays examples of combinations of letters and miscellaneous signs.

Use it freely at:
http://www.impallari.com/testing/
- Requires Firefox 3.6+/Chrome 13+
- 100% safe: Your fonts are only stored in your own browser 'localStorage'.
- Nothings gets uploaded to the server.

By Pablo Impallari (impallari.com) and Pablo Cosgaya (omnibus-type.com).
Based on Fontdrag (fontdragr.com) and Dave Crossland's FontTest.