Hello everyone!
This is my first attempt of designing an italic semi-serif display typeface. The thing with this italic is that is has to part from a roman earlier designed by my work colleagues. You will see attached the roman version and the italic as well. The roman is an experiment inspired by Filosofia type. You will notice that it lacks a certain coherent construction system. With this in mind I tried to maintain the semi-serif characteristic, and also the original idea to have less weight on the base of the letters. Also, I want my result not to appear so similar with the Filosofia type.
I noticed that some characters are more cursive than others that seem to be more oblique. I have a big dilema with the small z, where I tried to compensate the lack of weight with a longer tail. But it becomes too swirly. Characters like v and w seem more thiner than the rest. The V and W look pretty weird, and tend to fall on the right side.
If the regular A has bottom serifs can the italic A change intro a upward one? If the regular base endings are straight, can they be a little rounded an oblique in the italic?
The font lacks kerning and punctuation.
It would be really great to have your feedback! Any comments and suggestions are much appreciated.
Thank you!
0
Comments
Quick comment about the italic: word spacing is at least twice as wide as it should be; roman spacing is much better.
Sabina, try taking another look at the junctures, where the arches join the main stem on the lower case. Some look a bit dark and clogged, and may need a bit of thinning.
The top bar of the z is pretty heavy, and the 'tail' is very long; it looks out of balance, and will collide w/ other letters. And the diagonal spine may need to curve more, like the spine of the s, but reversed.
Giving all vertical strokes the same italic angle will run you into trouble. For instance, the right-hand strokes of h, m, and n need to lean a bit further forward than the straight stems on the left. Otherwise they'll look like they're leaning further backward. Same goes, in reverse, for letters like u. In general, slant letters and strokes by eye; making them mechanically consistent in a face like this won't work.
But before you do anything else to the itals, tighten the spacing up as George says. And try setting paragraphs of actual text, rather than test strings. It makes it much easier to see where things look wonky.
Good luck!
You might try swapping the serif treatments at the top and bottom of /S/.
A few other remarks:
- The terminal of /J/ is too close to the stem or too curled.
- It would be good to make the bottom terminal of /S/ like in /C/.
- The ear of /g/ is too short.
- The bulging at the bottom of /Z/ looks weird to me.
Keep it up! ;-)