Lies - geometric display serif - rough

Winston Scully

Howdy. My name is Winston Scully, I'm new here. Looking forward to more discussions with all you fine people.

I've been doing lettering for about 3 years, and been a graphic designer for about 4. I created my first typeface this year and released it back in September. My website and instagram has some of my recent work.

I've been chasing a few different ideas as of late, but Lies has risen from the group and taken a lot of my time.

Lies is a geometric display typeface based on a piece of graffiti that I'm very fond of in my hometown, Baton Rouge. It's not your normal graffiti, it's got decent typographical structure and it's just really fat. I think that's what has drawn my eye to it all these years. Anyhow, when I started making fonts I decided that I wanted to create something based on this piece of graffiti that aptly says "LIES" in big white letters across an abandoned pier on the Mississippi River.

This typeface is mostly intended for exploration into the type design world for me personally, but I'd really love to get some technical feedback, as well as some overall feedback on the concept. Is this interesting to you? Would you use it? I'm not quite sure what it's applications are, and I don't really have any particular set of goals besides learning the ins and outs of Glyphs. So please, honest thoughts welcome and anything you have to offer.



Here's a web preview if you don't want to download:

http://cl.ly/353v2a222j3G

James Puckett

I dig this, and it’s a good start on a second font. You need to work on the serif/sans concept. Right now it’s doing the Rotis thing—it’s not a typeface, it’s a collection of letters from different typefaces. You need to work out the serif/sans aspect, because the letters with no serifs, or only light serifs, pop out.

Intentionally or not, you’re working in a gridded style similar to nineteenth century lettering manuals like the one I ripped off when I did The Becker Gothics. And you’re showing your affection for nineteenth century type here. But that’s clashing with the OCR-Aish parts of this design. That needs to be resolved to make this feel coherent.

Also, the contrast feels a bit silly in places, especially X, x, and comma.

Put this away for a few months and work on something else in the meanwhile. Come back to it emotionally detached and this stuff will jump out at you.

Winston Scully

@James Puckett 

Thanks so much James! Really appreciate the feedback. Definitely confirmed some suspicions I had myself, I've just been isolated staring at it for too long.

What do you mean by "OCR-Aish"?

You're right, I'm going to put it down for a while and work on something else. 

Simon Sweeney

What do you mean by "OCR-Aish"? 

Really hope I’m not being completely condescending and misunderstanding this but it’s a reference to OCR-A

Winston Scully

@Simon Sweeney 
Haha, no not at all. I'm a bit naive on my typeface knowledge base. Now that you reference it I'm familiar, it just wasn't on the top of my mind. Thanks.