Freitag — toying around with a geometric display sans
Comments
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If you make the small caps at x-height, it could become hard to differentiate between the titling-style small caps and the normal lowercase. Instead of trying to get it right in one go, I'd recommend to make several versions (using interpolation) and pick the best.0
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I'd say +30, yes. But to really get a good view you should set a few actual words in the paragraph in small caps, and in half of those use the titling alternates.0
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I think I'm going to stick with +30, given that +20 is already dangerously close to the +14 overshoot in the Bold rounds. I'd like to keep the alignment zones well separated.
BTW, my current old-style numerals are at +100; I guess I can keep them that way? I seem to remember many contemporary fonts have numerals at 3/4 cap height or something.
I'm not worried about the titling alternates; presumably, they're only going to be used for titling, where small caps and lowercase are unlikely to be mixed.
BTW, is it necessary to make Cyrillic and Greek small caps...? They're already rather a niche product in Latin typography; are they even used in Cyrillic and Greek?
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You can shrink them with the RMX tools in a few seconds.
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Just for giggles, I set the «Text Font of the Month» sample from the latest MyFonts Rising Stars newsletter in Quinoa. To my disappointment, it felt rather off. I realized it was due to the round-topped /A, which screamed «This is not a text font!».
So I moved the round-topped /A to the Round cut (SS01), where it fits best, and made an angular /A for the Roman cut:
I rather like it that way. I wonder whether I can still pull off those round /K/X/Y among all these angular letters. I think I can, though.
Now the MyFonts sample does look rather like a workable text font to me:
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I'm not sure the /f/s are quiet enough for running text. You could keep their ascenders geometric but just tighten the radius a bit and they'd have a better shot.1
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Hmmm... the /f is the most iconic character in this face... it would hurt the display usage to change it. Maybe there should be a «Quinoa Text» cut, then...?
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BTW, since Hrant is now on the boards, here's the status quo of the Armenian inventory:
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Does the Armenian alphabet really have a pinwheel character?0
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@Craig Eliason — It just occurred to me that you can already switch off ligatures and contextual alternates if the /f is too exuberant in text sizes. The default /f is much more subdued, as shown in the text block here:
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(Disclaimer: I was previously helping Christian via email on Quinoa's Armenian.)
This is looking pretty solid now. Some of the caps are rather "stylized" but seem to fit this face, so... Some of the caps are still too wide or narrow, but only the Ց is totally wrong (and it doesn't help that it's reminiscent of Azeri's most characteristic letter... :-) because the top part has to be its own thing, and narrower. The Ք is also a problem, too extreme. Looks like a velociraptor. It could be a good alternate, but the main form should have no sharpness in the head.
In the lc only the ձ is standing out as a potential problem, being too stylized. But it's borderline so I'd need to see some actual text.
Alex, pinwheel?! Sheesh, no respect. It's definitely a mint... :-P
Some examples from my own collection:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/48413419@N00/5884730756/in/album-72157627201383652/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/48413419@N00/4156214863/in/album-72157627201383652/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/48413419@N00/16129664823/in/album-72157627201383652/
And here's your desert:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/48413419@N00/15489797684/in/album-72157627201383652/1 -
Pity! I liked the stylized versions of Ց and Ք better... I guess it's back to these, then?
I just can't wrap my head around ձ. It falls into a blind spot of my mind's axioms of topology. At least I'm glad that other type designers also struggle with it, given that my browser font uses the «smoking /a» solution.
Do you know of any geometric Armenian font that does it well?
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The Ք is great; the Ց could be a bit wider (especially the top part).
The ձ is hard for most Armenians too. But yeah, the one in Mshtakan is basically Inspector Clouseau on a spy mission to Armenia.
Instead of emulating a decent one from an Armenian geometric sans, I would keep improving this one, since it actually has something promising.0 -
Alright, new Ց:
As for improving the ձ, that's a rather tall order, given I have to idea in which direction to go to improve it. It looks weird in all directions as far as I'm concerned.
How about this, though?
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The Ց is solid.
The ձ is awesome!
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If you say so.
Can you recommend any Armenian text blocks for testing?
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I really feel like publishing. It's been a while! I have the promo material for MyFonts ready and all. I figure I'll submit my stuff to MyFonts in a week or so, maybe earlier if there's no more trouble on the Armenian front.
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Do these prices seem reasonable?
Single weight (roman or italics, incl. spin-offs): $ 24
Essentials (Regular, Bold, RegularItalic, BoldItalic): $ 60
Family (all fonts): $ 120
For instance, the single-weight «Thin» would include the fonts Quinoa Thin, Quinoa Titling Thin, Quinoa Round Thin, Quinoa SC Thin, and Quinoa Unicase Thin (which are all reproducible using Quinoa Thin and OpenType features). Family comprises 48 fonts.
I've never priced anything beyond $100, but looking around MyFonts it seems on the low side for a full family.
50% launch discount?
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I have a feel anything less than 80% off wouldn't register on MyFonts... :-/
But for advice on potential benefits of ~50% discounting, ask Dave Rowland of Schizotype, who seems to like that range.
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Good lord. I have to ask, since you appear to be working single-handedly, how exactly are you keeping 48 fonts organized? That just strikes me as a logistical nightmare. I'm not sure what your workflow is like, since I use version 5-era Fontlab, and you might have a more sophisticated set of tools in play, but I'm genuinely stressed at the thought of my own typeface reaching into the "small handful range" of individual fonts, as I attempt to keep each glyph up to date relative to everything else, along with sidebearings, kerning, OTF features, etc.Christian Thalmann said:Family comprises 48 fonts.
I've always imagined the bigger foundries create hugely customized tools to automate the management of so much potentially redundant and/or conflicting information within their families, but how are you approaching this?0 -
Hrant: It's not that I'm not tempted to go for a 80% discount — financially, it seems the way to go. I'm rather worried about earning the perpetual scorn of the type designer community for doing that. So far, my launches with 30%–50% discounts seem to have worked just fine, though.
Alex: It's not such a big deal, since many of those fonts are just «convenience versions» of the base fonts with certain OpenType features active by default (such as the small-caps fonts). In fact, the whole family is based on just 4 masters (Thin — Bold, Roman — Italic). For a subset of glyphs, I'm adding a third master at the Regular weight (using the brace trick in Glyphs) to make sure the thinning of certain strokes and joints in the Bold doesn't propagate too far down to lighter weights. For instance, the /a needs an intermediate weight because the bowl joint would otherwise look too flimsy in Regular.
Two masters:
Three masters:
The convenience fonts are made with custom parameters that replace glyphs, remove OpenType features, and redefine the family name for those instances upon export. I have a script that generates those custom parameters automatically. Does that count as a «hugely customized tool»? Probably not. I don't even know Python, I just adapted the script from something Mekkablue wrote for Traction.
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Good to know that 30%-50% works well (although to me 50% is still uncomfortably "clearance-grade"). BTW, I hope most people know to Hate The Game, Not The Player.
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By «works well» I meant getting into the Hot New Fonts in a reasonable time frame. I don't know how much more money I would have made with 80%...!
50% doesn't strike me as particularly cheesy; if anything, it's the most natural number to pick for a sale (half price!). 30% feels rather irrelevant, and 40% feels like you were too stingy to say 50%.
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Hmmm... should I give away the Regular for free...?
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Personally I prefer seeing the freemium model to the heavy-discount model. But not the Regular, an off weight (typically demi).
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Hello Christian! I've discussed your Cormorant Cyrillic with you on GitHub, and now I am here.
Have you updated Quinoa Cyrillic since this comment, or can I use it as the latest snapshot? http://typedrawers.com/discussion/comment/18460/#Comment_18460
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Welcome to the forums, Samuil!
I'm not sure if I changed anything on the Cyrillic since then, except for the /A. Here's an overview:
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I am not Serbian, but I feel like /Dzhe would look better if it was based on /U, not /u, i.e., if it had no tail. You could probably geometrize /dje a but further as well.
The ascender of /de looks massive in the bolder font.
I was afraid that /Kha would look unnatural, but it looks great.
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