sneekpi type work in progress

maciejpolczynski

Hello, 
I'm a 3rd year student of graphic design, but I learn type design by myself. The passion started after a week-long workshops with Martin Majoor during my first year of studies.

I'd like to get some critiques and advices on a type I'm working now. It's a very simple sans serif, with a bit of mechanical feeling. It's aimed to work nicly in a small sizes both in print and screen ( but rather screens would be the final aim )

Rafael Saraiva

Hello Maciej,

A text sans serif is a considerably difficult style to start with. If by chance this is your first design, I wonder if you considered working on a display typeface, which is the smoother way to get acquainted to the basics of typeface design. But some people enjoy real challenges and if this is the case, just go for it

To be frank, the design concept doesn’t look very original to me, which is quite ok if you’re focusing on the learning experience. I believe that your brief could be narrowed down as well. Aiming at print and screen at the same time is possibly too broad. Why not sticking to the screen only? You have a condensed, or perhaps, slightly condensed design. You could ask yourself what would be a good typographic scenario for such design.

As a rule of thumb, starting with a smaller set of letters is good practise. I spotted issues on outlines, proportions, weight distribution and spacing. You’ll find my comments in the attached PDF. Hope it makes sense and can be of help!

All the very best,
Rafael

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

Solid advice all around from Rafael there.

Since this is frankly a very mainstream design, you can't compete with the big boys with it, but it can certainly be an exceptional learning exercise.

My own main gripe is with the vertical proportions. The descenders are longer than the ascenders, which is the opposite of sound practice; when you consider how languages that use the Latin alphabet tend to use the vertical space, you're basically giving up prime real estate (above the baseline) to an area that –sadly– sees very little use. Quite often this doesn't matter, but: you're giving up apparent size (legibility) in the x-height region; and when linespacing is tight it can make a big difference in terms of avoiding collisions (especially in text with accented caps). This is, after all, intended to be a text face.

Also, your caps are as tall as the ascenders; usually this makes acronyms look distractingly large... but your caps are narrow enough that it seems to be OK. However your caps are too dark for immersive reading.