Since last November I've been working on a serif typeface and it's gotten to the point that with my current ability i'm not sure how to progress further-so I thought I'd post what I have on here.
For now, only this single base master is in progress but once it's done I will be expanding the family considerably.
I'm looking for any feedback, doesn't matter how severe.
I'll post more symbols and stuff including the oldstyle figures and numerators/denominators if/when I figure out how to use OpenType features in pages, or borrow a computer with Photoshop on it.
Comments
@Jasper de Waard Thanks! I'll be touching up those k's x's and y's. I think the reason it resembles Minion is the a b, and c, mostly. I'll see if i can make them more different. After looking some more it appears that my x height is also quite similar to Minion.
I'm not sure how to make it more "alive" myself. The things I've done are add calligraphic influence, made the shapes round and open. I'll try increasing the space between letters a touch but still If you have any Ideas for making it more alive, I'd love to hear them.
8 should have the top slightly smaller than the bottom to be able to stand on its feet. I'd do a bit of the same treatment to 2.
V, W look thinner than other caps, try to review each caps thickness around H and Os.
Terminals could be a bit more consistent throughout lc and numerals.
Hi Nathan,
As you may know, I do research into (the origin of) patterning in especially roman type. Looking at your Alive Serif I noticed that it shares some similarities with type that finds its origin in Italian Renaissance archetypal models, such as Adobe Minion Display. From the Type tester on the Adobe Typekit website I screendumped some images that I partly cut and pasted in combination with some overall horizontal stretching of the lowercase. Hopefully the outcome is a bit useful for you for further analysis of your design.
Best, Frank
@Adrien Tétar Thanks~ I've touched up a lot of the lower case and some of the numerals. I've also started tweaking vertical serifs but they not be tweaked enough yet.
@Frank I see you are using the Display version-using the text sizes of minion, however, there are more differences between Alive and Minion. When I do my Display sizes, I'll refer back to the image. I'm sure it will he useful.
Attached is a new proof for Alive, this time I've included more punctuation and the ß.
So I'm still struggling with the Greek. Is this better? Is the angle of stress okay for this style of Latin?
3 optical sizes for caption, large text, and display, with small caps and latin superscripts.
I'm not sure about the cyrillic /б it's not much like other fonts in the genre.
I'm also toying with the name Azolla, it seems a bit better than the current name.
All the diacritics are temporary and old which is why they're out of place and ugly~ just don't notice them for now. Oldstyle number are yet to be spaced and kerned.
attached is a pdf of the text page in the last image.
In Latin, the /Þ looks a bit too weak for a capital. I know it's hard to make it look important enough, but you can make the counter taller and wider than in /P.
The /ẞ doesn't work for me. Check out this advice page: https://typography.guru/journal/how-to-draw-a-capital-sharp-s-r18/
The beak of the hard sign is too big, the letter looks unstable.
Х and х look a bit top-heavy, probably because they aren't asymmetric enough.
б looks good.
К and Ж are a bit weird. Their legs are thick, their arms are thin. They need a bit more play in the stroke width.
@ Belleve Invis I'm seeing if i need a ligature but still working on it
@ Samuil Simonov well, i tried
@ Christian Thalmann /ẞ retweeked. I may have overdone it though.
Is this discontinued??
It would be GREAT for typesetting mathematics if you have italics...