Hello,
I have been drawing ornaments for years and decided to make a font similar to my previous project Floralis, but this time based on a personal face and not an existing font (and more mature I hope, with a better similarity between the letters). I drew the solids in FontForge and the ornaments by hand, then scanned and traced. I uploaded some solids to WhatTheFont and as far as I can gather, there is no previous exact match (could be, there is always this possibility).
I plan on expanding the Basic Latin to a full set, so I post this here to get the Basic right before moving on. Have not yet decided on the lowercase, probably will be small caps based on the solids, maybe not.
https://www.behance.net/gallery/1475681/Floralis-Font
Comments
I think an important decision is: Will this be a set of initials or a display typeface? Both require (and allow) totally different design solutions (in the first for instance, readability and uniformity is of lesser importance). Seeing you are planning for a full Basic Latin set, I think you are going for the second?
On some places ornaments are added outside the 'mould' (the C and Z for instance) but on other letters the serifs are sharply cut, which results in small 'fill-in' blocks that feel out of place. Perhaps be a good idea to let more serifs flow beyond the 'edge' of the letter (as for instance, done at the top of the 'K') to break the mould. This could also be done on the vertical 'sharp-cut' areas.
Some of the letterforms also don't go that well being ornamented, for instance the Q looks cluttered (I think it would be better to start the tail from the bottom). and the beak of the S is too small and black. Of course the base letters needs quite a bit of finishing, but I'll focus on the main concept.
I like the idea of being able to use the different versions together, but I think the initials could use some more personality without becoming a shape filled (or traced) with patterns. Otherwise you are in danger of not standing out from other ornamental fonts.
Firstly, define if you want serifs or not. As Arthur pointed, this initial iteration mix that. I would keep the criteria of B, D, P, I, and J: no real serifs, just small stroke increments at endings (like in Optima).
For a font with complete alphabet, I think it would be better to keep ornaments limited to "usual" forms. After you get the whole set and make tests, you can experiment with more free forms and see how (and if) they fit. The contrary way would make much harder to achieve consistency.
Specific notes:
BTW
There is a small leaf in I and J (at about 1/3 of the height) not present in K or L.
Not only that, but the color is different. A is more white than it should be, when I look at it now...
Here are a few points that might be useful:
-Lower half of left inner diagonal of M maybe looks a bit "blocky" compared to the rest.
-Left diagonal of Y looks a bit thin to me (on V looks good i.e)
-Tail of Q looks too thick, with really blunted ending. I expected more elegant form looking other letters/endings.
-P looks a bit whiter than O to me (like it has narrower gaps or less of them)
Cheers!
• The heavy diagonals of K, R, X, Y, and Z are too light. Optically they should match the vertical strokes.
• S is top heavy; make the lower terminal the big one.
• L, E and Z’s bottom horizontal terminals are too light and plain. It makes E and Z top-heavy.
Much like with icon fonts or ornamental vector packs, it's actually easy once you have the basic building blocks. I reshuffle and recycle them as lego bricks as much as is needed, and this not only saves time, but ensures consistency. The Cyrillic for example took me under 3 hours.
What I am more concerned about is the cleaning of the Beziers in the font editor, because it will surely be a mess once the shapes transit to there from Illustrator.
The only excuse I could semi-accept in others for tardiness and sub-optimal work is time pressure and a not high enough skill level. I don't wanna hear about how the baby acted out, or this or that person cut you off in trafic and that's why a project got derailed and other such excuses (and I have heard plenty of those). I have disciplined myself to go hard.
Also, the better the attention to detail, the less problems in the support phase. And it is the longest phase.
Do Armenian letters get diacritics when they are used as drop caps? I could incorporate diacritical variants in the design (see above posts)
Unrelated to the discussion but for the admins. Can we have a like button already? I mean you can see why "agree" or "insightful" makes no sense here. Hah
This makes me realise that while I really like the ornament shapes and how they fit within the letters, in the other scripts I think the actual letterforms themselves are not very interesting, and also old fashioned looking. Maybe try a heavier letterform? Perhaps something like a black weight sans serif, so the shape of the letters contrasts with the ornamentation?
Yes, this means starting over, but I think you'd have something much stronger and more useful in contemporary design.