Eau de Garamond — a sans distilled from the essence of Garamond
Comments
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Oh, I forgot about that. But homophones are OK, I think. Esp. in French, where everything is a hompohone of everything. At least to my ear
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I thought I was being clever — since Mateusz thought of his thing to be usable as some sort of companion to various Garamonds (kind of like in your case), I thought that Gaultier would sort nicely after Garamond in menus. But I was ignorant of Gauthier indeed. Let’s hope there will be no tensions (as the similarity was definitely not intended).0
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Hmmm, I'm having the blasphemous thought of performing tail reduction surgery on Ysabeau's most iconic letter, /a/ (before, after):
The change only affects the middle two masters. Worthwhile, or sad...?I was hoping of easing the /a/s/ collision a bit, but if anything, the fact that the colliding stroke ends are now no longer at the same height is more irritating...Also: Any idea on how to fix this butt-ugly Black /Omega/?
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About the /Omega/Maybe more round and less contrast? Similar to Source Sans Pro (but of course with extended width):1
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Thanks @Linus Romer, that helped! New /Omega/:
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@Christian Thalmann - I know the /Omicrom and /Omega both overshoot, but in that string above, the /Omicrom in particular looks a little short compared to the /Eta.2
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Hmmm, you probably have a point there.I've made some test O's with –9 (current), –11, –13, –15 points of overshoot. I'm leaning towards the middle two. Perhaps I should go with –12?
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Test with –13:
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I'm happy to announce that Ysabeau is scheduled to be ingested into the Google Fonts library, and that Google Fonts is funding me toward completing the family. Thanks Dave!
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Hmmm... given how much unsolicited advice I give out on /Germandbls/, I was embarassed to see my design for Ysabeau again. I tend to recommend raising the right top corner to cap height, but hadn't done that myself... so here's a new version. Much improved, isn't it? (Bottom is new)I should probably publish an update of my Twitter infographic on the Zürich form, since I'm using Ysabeau as the case study...
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I don't read German, so I probably can't really judge, but to me the previous version looked more organic/humanistic, and thus a better fit. It also looked nicer as an abstract shape, outside of any context. But again, this feedback might be of no value at all.Christian Thalmann said:Much improved, isn't it?3 -
I've spent a lot of time thinking about, and looking at, /Germandbls/ designs lately, and I'm thinking more and more that raising the right side of the roof to cap height is the key to a solid design. (Not sufficient, but perhaps necessary.)It's true that the previous design looked more organic, but it was organic in the sense of flabby, and that doesn't quite fit with my goals for Ysabeau.0
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In the new design, the ẞ feels to me like the top-right corner want to escape the cap-height. I am sure it is just an optical illusion, but I still feel uneasy when looking at it. It is subtle, but I prefer the previous design. Generally, the previous ẞ integrates better into the rhythm of the text whereas the new design feels more industrial.2
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Hmmmm... perhaps the problem is that I've combined several changes at once. I agree that the cap-high flat roof looks a bit mechanistic (my infographic recommends it primarily for typefaces with straight-sided /O/), and the prototypical Zehlendorf design doesn't quite reach cap height either. I guess it's not as important as I thought.However, the ductus of the right-hand structure is, IMHO, better in the second example, which is why I don't want to return to the first design.I've tried another curved approach (third row) with the new right-hand structure and a more relaxed roof (left shoulder less hunched up than in the first row, a bit lighter in the top). How's that?
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it is generally to open, too wide; the rhythmic pattern of light/strong parts is unsolved in the right half. The slanted part is too steep.
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the M is nice but could do with more width. Besides it the A appears too dark/broad. ND looks a bit unbalanced to me.
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it is generally to open, too wide; the rhythmic pattern of light/strong parts is unsolved in the right half. The slanted part is too steep.@Andreas Stötzner, I'm afraid our views on width, openness and slant are polar opposites (I tend to find your designs a bit too narrow and too agitated, albeit well drawn). If I remove even 10 units of width from these designs, they start to feel narrow to me.You raise an interesting point about stroke width, though. I tried two solutions for modulating the right side a bit more: One with a thickening roof and thinner diagonal (left), one with thin roof and thick diagonal (right).
In a larger text block and seen from afar, I prefer the solidity of the thick roof, but the hint of triangularity in the roof is a bit troublesome (There seems to be no good way of transitioning from the thin curve on the top left to thickness on the right without compromising the roundness of the arch). The thin-roof version, on the other hand, suffers from the conjunction of a thick diagonal with the thick part of the bowl, which is hard to avoid in a low-contrast sans. (You can't go from the inverted pen logic of Z to the regular pen logic of the bowl without some sort of conflict in between...) I'll have to tinker a bit more.I suppose I would rather keep the glyph low-contrast and cheat a bit on the weight distribution than to compromise the overall structural integrity. The B is similar in that regard.the M is nice but could do with more width. Besides it the A appears too dark/broad. ND looks a bit unbalanced to me.I can see your point concerning M, but not so much ND. What's the issue there?
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Since there are so many voices in favor of a narrower Germandbls (including some on the German forums, to my chagrin), I've tried brutally ripping 20 units from the two designs against my better judgement:
Could be worse, I guess. I clearly prefer the upper version (heavy roof, light diagonal) in this format.But whenever I look at /U/ẞ/ together, the latter feels pitifully shriveled compared to the generous counter of /U/. The effect is a bit lessened in the light-roof-heavy-diagonal design, but probably only because it's 10 units wider to begin with...I should probably add 10 units back to the upper design and call it a day.(BTW, Andreas: I've widened the /M/ by 20 units, hope it helps.)0 -
Christian Thalmann said:I should probably add 10 units back to the upper design and call it a day.(BTW, Andreas: I've widened the /M/ by 20 units, hope it helps.)For the record, that would look like this. I also added a tiny bit of weight to the thin diagonal since it felt brittle in the context of the other letters.
I'd consider that an acceptable compromise.At smaller sizes, though, it feels more calligraphic than the other letters for some reason. Maybe the round left upper corner?
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and yet, the diagonal part of Eszett is still too steep. This is also a matter of balancing the inner space with the adjacent right space (look at ẞS or ẞB). The strong bended terminal (bottom) is too heavy, the whole right part doesn’t work yet. Compare S next to ẞ … Btw, S is too light; right part of R (and B ) are to light compared to the left stem-side. The lighter stems of N are thicker than the analog part of the U, why? The inward bit of G seems too strong to me either. Upper and lower part of G is too light (see G next to E).
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In terms of steepness and right-hand profile, my design is actually very close to the Zehlendorf form of Bundes Sans (see below), which is my idol on the other side of the Leipzig–Dresden divide. The curvature of Zehlendorf demands a shallower angle at the join, but the overall motion is similar. I don't quite see the problem there.
You're probably right about the weights still being off (hence the glittering effect at small sizes); I might have overdone the modulation.Interesting points about the other letters, will look into those. /B/ doesn't look off to me, though, even though objectively the left part is lighter than the stem. I'll still try out a heavier right side. As for /U/N/: Should the U become heavier or the N lighter? Probably the former?
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I'm seeing some support of a horizontal right roof from the German forums, so I've made another attempt at that (with more humanist right-side structure). Maybe the somewhat less humanist construction is acceptable if it solves the other problems? I do think I get less of the scintillating impression at small sizes.Would the roof have to be thicker, like that of E? Strangely enough, I feel like the left stems of my Germandls are consistently too light, even though they’re already thicker than those of H or U.
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Trying out this form for the other weights:
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is the relative height distance between the two straight-turns-to-curve nodes on the stem too great?Christian Thalmann said:Strangely enough, I feel like the left stems of my Germandls are consistently too light, even though they’re already thicker than those of H or U.
I think this form is working pretty well.0 -
is the relative height distance between the two straight-turns-to-curve nodes on the stem too great?
I know what you mean — it's a consequence of several design requirements at war with each other: Trying to raise the shoulder high enough to achieve proper capital solidity and to avoid the leaning-away-to-the-right impression that plagues many designs; still keeping the shoulder round enough to look æsthetic and humanist; making the turn thin enough between stem and roof to evoke a hint of humanist ductus.
I probably put too much emphasis on the last point in my previous designs, which gave rise to a strange dazzling impression when viewing the glyph at small sizes. Now that I've relaxed that constraint quite a bit, maybe I can in fact bring the points closer:
Hmmm, it's very subtle, but probably better on the right?
I think this form is working pretty well.Glad you like it. It's pretty well-received on Typographie.info as well. I think we might have a keeper.
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Testing the width of /U/ on request from typographie.info:
Is an ever so slightly narrower /U/ better in the hairline? But then it looks more at odds with /O/.
(I didn't switch on CALT; it would cycle in /R.short/ before /A/.)
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Argh, I was going to let this rest now... but does the roof of the previous /Germandbls/ looks like it's sloping upwards just a bit from left to right? I get the impression every now and then, but not consistently. I'm thinking of taking the top right corner 10 units below the cap height to mitigate this.
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Yes, new version is way betterChristian Thalmann said:Argh, I was going to let this rest now... but does the roof of the previous /Germandbls/ looks like it's sloping upwards just a bit from left to right? I get the impression every now and then, but not consistently. I'm thinking of taking the top right corner 10 units below the cap height to mitigate this.
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Really liking this and it has been developing very well!
That said... I feel like U and T could be a tad narrower, and S a tad wider.2
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