Spacing

AbiRasheed

hi,

Re-lettered this [link], but still looks like it's missing something. Looking for some feedback on spacing and if the letterforms look okay or if there's any other issues please point that out too. Thanks!

Thomas Phinney

I would probably tighten the spacing a bit around the cap "I"

Speaking of which, the serifs on that letter seem a bit much, both coming out sideways and then going vertical. Maybe tame them a tad, make the ornamentation spring more from the main stem instead of off the serif so much? Or maybe it's just me.

AbiRasheed

@Thomas Phinney  hey man, good to see you here too and thanks for your critique, been dying to get some feedback! When you mean tighten the kerning  spacing on "I", if I tighten the kerning spacing for "I", wouldn't it be a lil too loose around VIE compared to the overall tracking for BREWS and VIEWS? The basic idea was to match the distance from the banner border to -B and S- in brews and match that to -V and S- in views, in order to get that I had to widen the "I" by adding an arm and then adjust kerning/tracking accordingly. To better understand what I'm saying here's a [linked image], the green lines. If I reduce the spacing on the "I", wouldn't this affect the overall tracking and kerning, thereby affecting the distance from the banner border to the nearest letter as in the linked image with the green stroke ? Hope that made sense.  Also, are you referring to the serif on just the "I"? if so can you sort of give me an example or just explain a bit further on how I should get the ornamentation working from the stem? Thanks!!

edited: Misread what you initially said.

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AbiRasheed

@James Montalbano something like this http://i.imgur.com/JrKTDqb.jpg ? 1 or 2? 

Mark Simonson

Those are not serifs, those are arms. The serifs that James is talking about are the little things on the left sides of the E and R. Capital I's do not have arms (although sometimes people add serifs to them in handwriting that are so long they look like arms).

AbiRasheed

@Mark Simonson ah ok thanks for clearing that up. This maybe 3 or 4? If you and @James Montalbano meant 3, then that's the option I've been intentionally avoiding from the get go since it messes with spacing. I've been leaning more towards options like 1,2,4 because I need it to be that wide to make up for spacing, such that's it's atleast as wide as R. Thoughts?

Mark Simonson

3 is correct.

4 is incorrect. It has arms with serifs. Or maybe serifs with serifs. Serifs are not supposed to have serifs, and I's are not supposed to have arms.

You need to resolve the spacing by moving the letters around, not by adding anatomically incorrect features to letters.

AbiRasheed

@Mark Simonson when you mean move the letters around, can you explain a bit more on that? Here's my problem though with 3., by definition of anatomy and the style I'm going for BREWS would be longer in length than VIEWS but if I went with option 3 as suggested by you and James then VIEWS would have tighter kerning and tracking and thereby look shorter in length to BREWS, this  poses a problem since they won't look uniform to each other in the banner. I'm not sure how else to go about it besides adding ornamentation to the "I", adding an arm with serifs to keep it wide, almost to that of R or slightly more. Another option would be to reduce width on B to make up for the space in "I" such that BR is almost the same width to that of VI but I'm afraid it may still look off kerning wise. 

Edited

Mark Simonson

Well, it takes some creativity. What you've done is a creative solution, but it doesn't work because it is anatomically wrong and therefore possibly confusing.

What I would do is either move the letters in the word VIEW farther apart, make the letters in the word VIEW slightly wider, or some combination of those two methods, until the two words look balanced. You could even make the serifs on the I a bit longer than the serifs on the other letters. The two words don't necessarily have to be the exact same width as long as the difference is not apparent.

The trick is to make little cheats that give the impression that the two words are the same width without being obvious about it. That's one of the advantages of lettering over type. You can cheat.

AbiRasheed

@Mark Simonson  Thanks for clarifying and the suggestions. So I tried what you said and there is still a considerable amount of spacing in VIEWS that I can't make up for because of this "I"  from 3. and also because of kerning on VI. I went about reducing width on B, E, W a tad bit for BREWS, in VIEWS I increased width on E, W and still BREWS seemed to appear a lot tighter in tracking. If I maintain the length for both BREWS and VIEWS uniformly like they were in my previous examples, then the kerning/tracking gets messy and looks non-uniform with the current changes I made. Besides the spacing issue,  changing width for duplicated letters like EWS was more noticeable the moment I sized it up making it appear like one was more wider than the other.

AbiRasheed

@Mark Simonson I may have figured out a solution I think by using the proper "I" as you,  James and Thomas suggested but by not compromising the length of BREWS and VIEWS. Can you please take a look at this [link] and tell me if there's anything you notice that looks off or different and does it appear to be similar in length and uniformly spaced?  The "I" there is just a rough  I slapped on so I know how much width it'll need in order to get overall spacing right for both BREWS and VIEWS. Thoughts? 

Edited

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Thomas Phinney

Kudos to Mark and James for doing a better job than I did of explaining the I serifs issue.

AbiRasheed

@James Montalbano  @Thomas Phinney  @Mark Simonson  Fixed I, B, W, S, adjusted spacing, also added more width for W in VIEWS (if its very noticeable that it's different to the W in BREWS then I might have to fix this so they look optically uniform but please let me know), etc. Here's a [link] with the current changes, thoughts? Thomas, I think you explained just fine, I misread some of it, my fault, cheers!

George Thomas

It appears to me that the word "VIEWS" could be moved left so the white space on the right of the /S matches the white space on the right of the /S in "BREWS". It isn't a large difference right now, but every little bit helps.

The inter-character spacing in "VIEWS" can remain the same. By moving the entire word to the left it will take up a little of the white space on the left which should give more of an impression of balance for the two words in the ribbons.

If more balance is still necessary, then you could try expanding the word "VIEWS" by .5-1%, which likely won't be noticeable.

Craig Eliason

As long as you're imperceptibly fudging things, keep in mind you can fudge the banner borders as well as the letters (i.e. it doesn't have to be exactly symmetrical). 

My eye wants the I to be rotated ever so slightly counterclockwise (or more properly, skewed in that direction (top leftward)) so that it looks like it follows the curves of the banner more. Right now the IEW feel stiffly aligned. 

Deleted Account

Besides the lettering, the work seems to missing some of the final graphic. There are  holes and unexplained stroke differences.

No, now the next version has the bowler hat and inverted tilde has disappeared.

Is there something else in this grapihic? If that's the case, what is it?

After completion of the graphic elements, I'd get the banner's weight correct. Without that, I think you are fighting a losing design.

Then, I'd do the nerdy lettering and spacing stuff that is pretty subjective and endlessly so, last.

AbiRasheed

"George Thomas"  Thanks for the critique! Made adjustments and moved it to the left,  link to current changes, didn't size it up though but if you think it'll make a difference I can add that. I'd like to keep it the same weight though but let me know please. @Craig Eliason Yep! That was the solution, I wanted to avoid as much as fudging with the width of the letters specially because there were duplicate letters like EWS, so instead reduced the right banner in length to make up for that. As for IEW, I just linked with current changes, let me know, thanks. "David Berlow" Yep there's a ton more aside from the BREWS and VIEWS lettering, thing is I needed to get this bit right before I move on to the rest. The rest are all straight forward graphic elements and a monogram but I left those out so it doesn't become a distraction in the midst of fixing BREWS and VIEWS. Can you explain more on what you mean the banner's weight? Thanks for the feedback.

Edited: new link

George Thomas

It looks much better now, although due to the angle of the /S on the right banner it appears slightly tighter. Also, given its downward angle, the /S on the right banner appears to be skewed a little to the left although technically it isn't. You could angle it slightly to the right then move everything to the left a little more to take up more of the space on the left. Anything you can do to fudge a bit will help although it is looking good.

AbiRasheed

"George Thomas"  Here's a [link] with the current changes you suggested. Doesn't it look more like there's a lot more space now between S- to the banner border in VIEWS than the border to -B in BREWS ? 

George Thomas

@AbiRasheed Not when you compare top-to-top and bottom-to-bottom. It looks better balanced now given what you're having to work with.

AbiRasheed

"George Thomas"  Sweet, thanks man, I think I'll start to finish up the rest of the stuff and see how it goes but I think it should fit well with the rest of the graphic. Thanks everyone else as well for getting me through specially by helping me avoid an amateur mistake with that "I" in the first place. Cheers