Sans serif critique, please

Alex VisiAlex Visi Posts: 185
edited May 2017 in Type Design Critiques
Hello everyone,
I’m a beginner in type design, and here’s my first study typeface. Could you please point out mistakes that I’ve made here?

It’s done by interpolation between Thin and Heavy, so Black is extrapolated (not that good I suppose). It has no kerning (optical in AI) and no hinting yet. Forgive me for this silly diacritics use, just an example ;)

There’s the whole alphabet in the PDF.

Comments

  • Craig EliasonCraig Eliason Posts: 1,397
    Spacing of the light may be too tight. Tangential joins of light lowercase are spotty--thin the arm of the r as it enters the stem for example. (Counters of the bold circular letters (COQG) and perhaps some lowercase feel too squarish. 
  • Alex VisiAlex Visi Posts: 185
    Thank you Craig!

    Anybody else? Please, guys, I need your professional advices :)
  • The "f", "j" and "G"* stand out. If this is a learning exercise, tame them. But if you'd like people to actually want this typeface, change all the rest to follow them.

    * BTW the "5" nicely follows the "G".

    The vertical proportions are problematic. The caps are too large compared to the ascenders* which in turn should be longer than the descenders. I would simply raise the ascenders.

    * Unless this design is intended for use in reference works, where proper names should stand out.
  • Chris DChris D Posts: 76
    edited June 2017
    I would consider widening the tail of the /g to make it balance better with the bowl. Also maybe add a bit of a kink in the bowl of the /a like in Helvetica, to give it character.

    Other than that it looks like a good start to me. You should consider designing a Regular though and not leave it up to interpolation (but use the middle weight as a starting point by all means). That will become the most used weight so you need to put time into perfecting the Regular optically.

    Check out Stevie Sans for some inspiration: https://typekit.com/fonts/stevie-sans
  • I'd recommend balancing out the counters of /a and /e in the light weights.

    I agree with Chris that the tail of /g is too weak.

    The accents are a bit too close to the letters for my taste, but maybe that's intentional. The /eogonek doesn't work that way, though.
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