Rejected by Myfonts

Henrique Ibaldo

Hello TypeDrawers,
after a few years studying calligraphy and lettering design, I decided to create my first digital font for commercial distribution. However, as a self-taught with no mentors, my first attempt to sell on MyFonts was rejected. They encouraged me to continue studying, but weren't much specific about why my font was rejected. They only said they didn't see enough of "design quality, originality and/or completeness". I'm still proud of my work and will try to sell it in other platforms, and I'm grateful for them taking the time to review my work, but as a self initiated beginner, I could really make good use of some more specific critics about the typeface design itself, in order to improve. Saying that, I would like to invite you to have a look at Querencia, my first digital font, and give me any critic you think pertinent. Every word from you guys will be much appreciated and mean a lot to me, considering that everyone here has a valuable time. Proof sample attached.

Michiel Drost

Hi Henrique, I have just looked at Querencia. The basics for a font are certainly there, you just have to smoothen-up the curves a little bit. The capital K seems too wide. So it is just down to the artwork; drawing smooth curves. You will get better at it the more you practice. Keep at it!

James Puckett

This seems more like a cacophony of old font trends with no driving concept. You pulled lots of ideas together, but there’s no concept that defines the font. It’s just a love letter to other fonts you like—Mrs. Eaves, Gotham, Bodoni, Bleeding Cowboy, Domaine Text. That’s not something a graphic designer can use to express something. 

If I were you I would just move on. Treat Querencia as a student project that you designed for the sake of learning. Start designing simple stuff with simple ideas before you move on to bigger projects.

Austin Stahl

Hi Henrique: I had a similar experience, getting rejected with minimal/vague feedback. Don't be discouraged! I'm actually glad it happened, because my skills are already so much better now than they were then — I needed to focus on continuing to learn rather than jumping right into selling.

I think this looks a little too much like "Mrs Eaves with chunky wedge serifs." There's not quite enough to set it apart.

SiDaniels

Jan gave a talk on this subject at ATypI. I think the team that reviews submissions is small and they have to review a lot of fonts.

Henrique Ibaldo

Hi Michiel, thanks for taking some time to look at Querencia. I totally agree with you. I even made a contextual alternate for the capital K to "fix" this (I had a loose traking in mind when designing the typeface - does it make any sense?):

About curves, I had the feeling that I was getting better on the latest designed letters than I was with the first ones. I will focus on getting better at this from now on. It will be one of my top priorities for sure. Thanks again for the valuable comments Michiel!

Henrique Ibaldo

Hi James, thanks for sharing your opinions about Querencia. The concept behind Querencia is Rio Grande do Sul’s (South of Brazil) culture, people and nature. It was based on transitional typefaces for historical reasons, so you are right about some references (is it too obvious?). My intention was to bring the tough personality of the Brazilian Gauchos to a typeface, which explains the "chunky wedge serifs" Austin mentioned. Also, it should have simple straight lines to make it easy to engrave on wood, iron or stone, giving it the rustic feel prevalent in southern Brazil. My biggest problem with the concept I was following was that Rio Grande do Sul doesn't have a solid and original typography history, so Querencia tries to simulate what would be a typographic heritage of my people (so there is a bit of fiction in it). However, the end result, in my opinion, really has the personality I was looking for, I mean, I can really see my people in it (and so can other southern Brazilians who saw it). I couldn't say that any of your mentioned fonts are a Gaucho font. I can with Querencia, though.

Unfortunately, I thought I had reached this concept in a more universal level. You made me understand that for the rest of the world, Querencia might be just a "Mrs Eaves with chunky wedge serifs". Just the phrase "that’s not something a graphic designer can use to express something" teached me a lot. I have a feeling, per contra, that in a regional level it's going to mean something. Your comments helped me a lot, James. I really appreciate it, and will consider every word.

Henrique Ibaldo

Hi Austin! Thank you so much for the kind words! I will just keep learning as you said. I think you're right about "Mrs Eaves with chunky wedge serifs". My main historical reference was Baskerville, though. Thanks for taking some of your time to look at Querencia and for your encouraging feedback. It means a lot to me.

Henrique Ibaldo

Hi SiDaniels, they might have a lot of work, but I don't even think it is their job to give more specific feedbacks. So please don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining or anything. They were actually really nice to me.

Jan Middendorp

Hi Henrique,

I’m the guy that coordinates MyFonts’ Foundry Review, and I write most of the letters to aspiring foundries, based on the team members’ assessments. We’ve done this for 3 years now, and received more than 1,100 submissions in that period — one new foundry a day. We’ve accepted less than a quarter, often after months or years of detailed feedback and improvements.

We’re all very much part-timers (as for me, I write the MF newsletters, edit the Guides mentioned below, write and edit design books and work as a book designer for Repeater publishers in London) and it’s not our job to offer free personal coaching to everyone. In these 3 years, we’ve realized that we have to limit our to-do lists to the typefaces we really hope to eventually release, and want to get back on our desks, improved.

If a font shows little promise, and seems to be very much part of a person’s learning process (James’s assessment was pretty much spot-on there) we don’t give specific to-do lists any more, because a) it’s more work than we can afford to do and b) we’ve learned that it sends out the wrong message sometimes, encouraging a designer to make amendments and resubmit a font that we had doubts about in the first place.

As a musician or visual artist, when you don’t get accepted by a label or a gallery first time around, you have to find out by yourself what your craft is really about, and why your work doesn’t meet certain standards. And contrary to labels and galleries, who have personal agendas, if your work is good enough (original, well-designed and technically sound) then MyFonts WILL accept you as a new foundry. 

In order for young designers to find out more about making and marketing type, and the way failure and success works in this business, we’ve set up a series of Foundry Guides, which we started to publish last month. We hope to add more soon. These guides were also written exactly because we don’t manage to coach people like you individually, but would like to provide you with useful information. In the end, however, nothing works as well as real teaching: perhaps you need to do workshops or courses with some of the excellent professional type designers your country has to offer. 

Best wishes from the Review team.

Henrique Ibaldo

Hi Jan!

It means a lot to me having you personally joining this discussion. I'm thankful for this, as I am for your feedback and for having your team reviewing my work, and I have already learned a lot from your generous contribution. I completely understand that it's not your job to personally coach everyone, this wouldn't even be viable, giving the amount of submissions you receive. However, I am grateful to you for all the valuable  (priceless) return I'm getting from TD, since getting feedback from experienced peers was an encouragement you gave me.

I want to apologize if I ended up taking too much of your time, it wasn't my intention. I'm just tying to learn. I understand that Querencia's rejection wasn't a matter of personal taste, but a quality issue. Just having something to show you guys was a huge step for me, and I hope someday I'll be good enough to reach up to MyFonts' standards. In the meantime, I will keep seeking learning, as you advised me.

I was very happy to be informed that all of the Foundry Guides are available now. The first two, "Getting Started on MyFonts" and "Are you ready for MyFonts?", had already helped me a lot as I'm sure it has been very resourceful to many others, and I was looking forward to read the next four.

Thanks again Jan, for all the time and attention to this matter and to us, aspiring type designers. I guess at the end of the day, we all just want more beautiful typography in this world.

Ramiro Espinoza

@Henrique: Studying the proportions and features of classic roman typefaces relevant to our typographic tradition (i.e., the types of Pradell, Rongel, Gil and Espinosa) would be a good training exercise.

Ramiro Espinoza

See: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pepel/sets/72157622195884871/

Henrique Ibaldo

Hi Ramiro,

it took me some time to understand what you meant by "our typographic tradition". Thank you very much for the historic and cultural reference. I wish I had seen it before starting Querencia. This is something that I am very interested but know little to nothing about. I will try to dig deeper into the Caracteres de La Imprenta Real, and try to learn not only about the designs but about the history behind it and it's influence "down here".

Igor Freiberger

Querencia is a modified Berthold Baskerville regular. Basically, you changed serifs and terminals, keeping the original forms. It is a valid learning exercise, but not viable to commercial release.

Besides the critiques already posted, I think you should define and follow general criteria to achieve good results. For example: you said the larger serifs aim to make easier wood or stone engraving. But if engraving with a rustic appearance is a target, you need to treat under the same criteria other elements. Q tail, g open bottom and most figures are not rustic at all and make wood engraving quite difficult.

Considering Rio Grande do Sul's culture (I also live in Porto Alegre), you may also define what kind of expression you want to take as main reference: rustic, rural wood engraving, or late 18th Century typography used in most publications here until 50s. Both are culturally legit, but a first project mixing so different sources seems quite challenging.

What about a visit to Hippolito José da Costa Museum? A regional face project would benefit a lot from the old newspapers texts and ads.

Ramiro Espinoza

I just spotted: the swashes look clumsy.

LeMo aka PatternMan aka Frank E Blokland

Hi Henrique,

Irrespective of the question whether or not you should want to release Querencia (insight and idiom have to mature like wine IMHO), there are some fundamental problems in your design that you should focus on first. It looks like you made decisions concerning shape and details, like the lengths and weights of the serifs, without taking much care of their effects on the rhythmical patterning. I took the liberty to do some rough cutting and pasting in Photoshop to illustrate my point.

Michael Jarboe

(insight and idiom have to mature like wine IMHO)

Love this.

Henrique Ibaldo

Hi Igor,
thanks for joining the conversation! Querencia was already accepted by a major distributor, besides MyFonts rejection, but I'm not releasing it before improving some details. I was really lucky to get the help of a very experienced and generous designer who is now guiding me on this.

I was also thinking about how the rustic feel could've been more explored, in order to have a stronger concept. I guess you are right about how challenging it was and I am very convinced that I didn't get exactly were I wanted. However, giving all the help and encouraging I'm getting, I have a feeling that I will get much closer next time.

Visiting Hippolito José da Costa Museum is a great tip, I will definitely do it, probably even this week. Let me know if you want to go too, you could join me, we could get some references and change ideas.

Henrique Ibaldo

Ramiro, if I could learn something about swashes from someone, it could certainly be from you. Would love to hear a few more words about it, if you please. Thanks for giving Querencia a second look.

Henrique Ibaldo

Hi Frank,
I'm glad to have you taking some of your time to look at my work and sharing some thoughts. You have actually answered real doubts I had when designing the glyphs. Thanks for the illustration, it is very clarifying and shed some light on where to improve.

Michiel Drost

Hi Henrique, Our esteemed colleague Frank Blokland raises a valuable point in relation to type design; 'insight and idiom have to mature like wine'. So far I have designed more than twenty typefaces, none of those is suitable for commercial use (IMHO). I am still learning. It can be a long journey.

Ramiro Espinoza

Henrique, the fact that a distributor has accepted your font does not make it better. There are people out there that would publish anything, even more now that Myfonts is more picky.
And if it is true your fonts share digital data with other commercial font, you could be risking receiving a cease and desist letter at some point. 
My advise is to just abandon the project and start from scratch a new project trying not to repeat the same mistakes. 
About the swashes: they look like you don't understand the contrast you should be using or/and you are not accustomed enough to draw pen strokes. In any case, you need to sketch and practice more before digitizing such things. 

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Henrique Ibaldo

Hello again everybody,
I'd like to thank all the time, care and support I've had from the community so far. When I first got here, I wanted to learn things I knew I couldn't figure out by myself. What I didn't expect was the enormous amount of knowledge I was about to get. What I've learned from all the members contributions (public and private ones) is priceless to me, and way more than I could expect. Some guys here are like rockstars to me, and I was more than honored to have your critics and insights. I guess it is also important to mention that what I brought here was not, in any form, a modification of digital files provided by others. I wouldn't think it would worth your time, if that was the case; I wouldn't even want to distribute the font for free.

Finally, I hope you keep the good will of sharing your knowledge with beginners like me. As Michiel said, it can be a long journey, and I'd like to add that this journey, for some, would be impossible without the generosity of others. In the future, on my next projects, I'll do everything possible to honor the knowledge and time you provided me here. I wish you all the best!

Henrique Ibaldo

By the way, thanks for sharing Latin 512 here, James. Analyzing it will be a masterclass to me, for obvious reasons.

Adam Twardoch

I may add that TypeDrawers is actually a good place to post early designs and gather community feedback. Many young type designers started by sharing in-progress images, PDFs and/or prerelease fonts on Typophile, and later here on TypeDrawers, and other, more experienced designers have provided feedback. 

For those young or aspiring type designers who don't have the opportunity of attending a full-time type design course or even a workshop, or in addition to these paths, TypeDrawers is actually the perfect place to showcase your work progress even before submitting it for distribution. 

Best,
Adam

Simon Cozens

Adam: and that's only because people like yourself (and many others here) are prepared to give their time, considered opinion and considerable expertise to help us newcomers onto the ladder. So thanks once again!