Gotham-inspired Sans Font?

Hi, I'm an amateur font designer with several little hits on Dafont (though they're mostly display fonts). I'm working on my first attempt at making a multi-weight font.

This is yet to be named, so I would like some suggestions on that as well. The top is supposed to be Heavy/Extra Bold and the bottom is supposed to be Hairline/Extra Light. May I get some advice regarding this font's design (besides the kerning of the preview; it's still not been assembled into a font file)?

Comments

  • /B and /R conflict, and /P is missing (I wonder which of these glyphs it follows). /G and /Q, as much as I like them, are too informal to fit, as is /B. Also, I'd reconsider giving the UC descenders; you have the rest of the UC neatly into boxes, and the descenders would literally stick out with all or small caps. The top curves of /S and /s (and others) are too heavy. For that matter, you need a lot more optical compensation, even in the light weight – most of the joins are too thick and bulky. More than that, lines that are mathematically monoline paradoxically need compensation to look monoline. Heavy /X is quite nice, but light /X and /x are fugly, too obviously showing the offsets in their construction. Heavy /k makes me smile – I really like it! – but light is too... I dunno; too informal? And certainly too wide. (Er, its advance, not its weight.) Then again, /t does a similar trick, so I may be off base here. I also like how /y is formed on /u. The crossbars/arms of /F are too long. The curves of /n and its ilk are too bashful, slanting too much towards the stem. The joins of /n and /b and their ilk seem to occur at differing height at each weight – another illusion requiring compensation. /K is maybe just a touch too proud, advancing too far, to harmonize, but I'm not sure. The inner and outer curves of /D don't entirely match in the heavy. /V and /W don't have the same relationship to each other that /v and /w have - /W is compressed while /w isn't; and is /w wider than /W? (But I also like their squareness.) Light /Y advances too far. And is it just me or is /Q (and I assume the missing /O) leaning to the right?

    In short, you have some very nice letters and a good sense of proportion, but there are some issues with color and harmonization. I think you'll have it sorted out in no time.

  • I think the /G is fun, but not having a more "normal" version available would probably be a dealbreaker for a lot of users.

    Because your glyphs are the same actual width in both weights, the Light ends up looking a whole lot wider than the Bold. Which makes certain characters look weird, some more than others. Don't worry about what the actual widths are, just make 'em look right.
  • I appreciate the critique a bunch! I've taken your suggestions into account and built the font's lowercase portion. Any more things I should fix?


    Side-note: I tried interpolating on FontForge, but /h/w/x/y produced jumbled results. Any idea what's going on? I've posted this also on Stack Overflow.

  • Side-note: I tried interpolating on FontForge, but /h/w/x/y produced jumbled results. Any idea what's going on?
    I don't use FontForge, but it looks like the kind of result you'd get if your nodes weren't properly corresponding from master to master--e.g. if the related node on each master wasn't marked as first.
  • Jasper de WaardJasper de Waard Posts: 617
    edited November 2015
    I second what Craig said about the interpolation. 

    This is actually really cool! A nice mix of modernist and humanist features, and some funky glyphs to stand out. The first thing I noticed is that the interpolated 'regular' looks perfect in width to me, but the extrabold looks too narrow, and the extralight looks too wide. Furthermore I recommend you use proper type design software (preferably, Glyphs, Fontal Studio, or RoboFont) if you want to make this into something truly worthwhile.

    I don't really get the structure of the light v w and x, it's unnecessary. 

    Get the basic things right, before you start focussing on details again. Don't stop here, though, keep it up!
  •  I recommend you use proper type design software (preferably, Glyphs, Fontal Studio, or RoboFont) if you want to make this into something truly worthwhile.

    I recommend using
    trufont.github.io which is essentially FontForge's replacement, many of the key FF development community have moved their focus to it :)
  • @Dave Crossland what? I completely missed this until now.
  • Side-note: I tried interpolating on FontForge, but /h/w/x/y produced jumbled results. Any idea what's going on?
    I don't use FontForge, but it looks like the kind of result you'd get if your nodes weren't properly corresponding from master to master--e.g. if the related node on each master wasn't marked as first.
    Exactly this.
  •  I recommend you use proper type design software (preferably, Glyphs, Fontal Studio, or RoboFont) if you want to make this into something truly worthwhile.

    I recommend using trufont.github.io which is essentially FontForge's replacement, many of the key FF development community have moved their focus to it :)
    I tried Trufont. It did nothing.
  • Dave CrosslandDave Crossland Posts: 1,389
    edited November 2015
    Harry, I assume you ran it on Mac OS X, where, when first run, it loads and no windows appear; you need to go to File, Open and open a UFO's metainfo.plist file

    Kemie, I'll post a note about this on the ff mailing lists now
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