Ornamental Initials

Vasil Stanev

John Hudson said:

I really like this last kanji character, although I can't attest to how well it reads. I think it is graphically more interesting that any of the forms from the other scripts, and has a really nice feel of collage.

This makes me realise that while I really like the ornament shapes and how they fit within the letters, in the other scripts I think the actual letterforms themselves are not very interesting, and also old fashioned looking. Maybe try a heavier letterform? Perhaps something like a black weight sans serif, so the shape of the letters contrasts with the ornamentation?

Yes, this means starting over, but I think you'd have something much stronger and more useful in contemporary design.

?But they are heavy sans (Hai)?


I have no deep knowledge of Hebrew and Armenian, just googled the most common images of the alphabets and the "most used" fonts of both kinds.

Vasil Stanev

These are my models. By the way, the heaviest hanzi character above 滾 breaks the norm the most, because without the extra contour lines it becomes unreadable. So your judgment could be a bit distorted: what worked for letters broke down when I got to the complex hanzi.

Craig Eliason

I think he meant a heavy sans model for the Latin. 

Vasil Stanev

It is pretty heavy as it is

Andreas Stötzner

Hebrew letters typically have their horizontal parts stressed, rather than the vertical ones, like Cyr., Lat. and Greek. I think you should give that a try.

Simon Cozens

The water radical (⺡) works perfectly. I find the rest of it a bit of a mess. I would never have picked it out as 滾.

I think you would need to think how your ornaments relate to strokes, because being able to pick out the strokes and stroke order is a hugely important part of kanji legibility. So your lid radical (⼇) is written as two strokes: first the vertical dot and then the horizontal line. Because in your example the vertical dot "grows out" of the stroke, it's hard to know whether you meant ⼇ or just a rather floral ⼀.

Radicals need to be distinct; you need to see a lid ⼇, then an eight ⼋, then a mouth ⼝, then clothes 𧘇. In other words, instead of thinking of your template as:


you need to see it more as

That was a very rough drawing but I hope it conveys the meaning.

Vasil Stanev

The order of writing the kanji out is opposite to the one that plants grow.
Serious problem, will think about it.

John Hudson

It is pretty heavy as it is.

Not really, and it the style and proportion of the letters seems very old fashioned. My take on ornamented letters always begins with 'Would I use these letterforms if they were not ornamented?', because no matter how lovely the ornamentation is the overall typographic appearance matters first and foremost. So I'd really like to see your ornamentation applied to more contemporary lettering styles, of which I suggested black sans serif because it would provide ample space for the ornamentation while providing a dramatic contrast between the style of the letters and the organic nature of the ornamentation.

Vasil Stanev

@John Hudson this is a very interesting turn of events, it brings me full circle to my Orthodox font which I used Times New as a basis for. Over the years I have tried to escape from sans for my ornaments because it is precisely this contrast of organic and rectangular that bothers me. Also, ornamental fonts are generally a thing of the past IMO, so the shape of the letterforms should also be old-ish, IMPO. You bring another viewpoint into it all... I am of two minds now. 

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

Good to see you doing Armenian! The model you used is pretty solid; only its Ւ is a shape I don't recommend. Interestingly though the Ւ in your font is actually fine!

The biggest issues:
— If you are in fact breaking the rectangle on occasion, I would say do that for the Է and Լ on the bottom. If not, try to make their bottoms stronger. 
— The Հ is weak. Make the bottom thick diagonal flatter, giving more room for a stronger top thin diagonal. For the top half I would use a curved structure, for more character and to fill the space better.
— The Ձ, Շ, Չ and Ց could fill the rectangle more.
— The horizontal of the Ք should be stronger (especially on the right).
— The Ֆ needs a bigger bottom-right.

(BTW I've been sadly neglecting TypeDrawers and only stumbled on your post looking for something else; in the future please use my handle!)

Andreas Stötzner said:

Hebrew letters typically have their horizontal parts stressed, rather than the vertical ones, like Cyr., Lat. and Greek. I think you should give that a try.

Yes, this is quite important here.

BTW I'll try to ping some Hebrew designers to help out.

Vasil Stanev

Why do your and mine version of Հ look so different? Are there variants of this letter?

Vasil Stanev

P.S. I came upon this gem when I went through some used books in a garage bookshop. Are the letter forms and orthography still relevant?

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

The Հ is indeed the one letter with the most divergent forms. There's even a structure that looks like an "R" with the left stem missing (which I don't generally favor).

That book is classic Soviet-Armenian. Both the letterforms and the orthography are still valid. Note how the Ւ of the classical alphabet has been replaced with a ՈՒ (from the unfortunate Soviet spelling reform). Thankfully that ԵՎ though is now rarely seen as part of the alphabet. Most diasporan Armenians use the classical orthography, but Armenia itself uses the reform.

Vasil Stanev

I am getting somewhat aggro with the Prosper tool on MF.  Staff tells me the tool says glyph clipping occurs on Windows. I tested it exactly against that (UPM is 2000), nothing is clipped. Is it some mistake I made or is the tool buggy? Hopefully it's me, I have had quite the trip with this font and it's possible I am overlooking something. The ascender is 1500, is that it?