Help with greek needed

Diego Maldonado
Diego Maldonado Posts: 9
edited July 2016 in Type Design Critiques
Hi, I'm designing greek for the first time and I would be grateful if someone could help me with the shapes.
This is a multipurpose sans with a wide range of weights. I'm working with three masters (the ones I show on the samples)

Could anyone assist me on this?
thank you very much in advance.
(no kern on greek yet)

attached to the post is a PDF file with the sample as instructed on the forum guidelines

Comments

  • Ori Ben-Dor
    Ori Ben-Dor Posts: 386
    I don't read Greek, but the small beta and small theta seem to me too wide, especially the beta in the heavy weight.
    I'd also suggest that you reconsider the shapes of the small beta and small delta. For the beta, I'd try to make the cusp sharper (that is, bring its two arms closer sooner, so that each bowl looks more even rather than skewed up or down). For the delta, the upper left quarter of the bowl, where it meets the tail, might look better if it was pulled inside a little.
  • Here is some excellent source for learning about greek type design:
    http://leonidas.org/greek-type-design/

  • Nick Shinn
    Nick Shinn Posts: 2,200
    edited August 2016
    I would make the Greek descenders a bit deeper. The tails on zeta, xi and sigma should not be as deep as other “descenders”.

    I also think there could be more consistency in the central strokes of phi and psi. In particular, the centre stroke of psi is much too dominant.

    In general, you don’t have to make the parts of Greek letters that extend beyond the x-height conform to one “ascender” and one “descender” position. 

    omega is too narrow in the light weight, although OK in the bold.
  • Adam Jagosz
    Adam Jagosz Posts: 689
    edited August 2016
    There seems to be an issue with /Upsilontonos - the tonos is at a different height compared with the other caps.
    Then, I'd allow for more leeway in terms of stroke width in the heavy weight - just look how large the counters in /beta appear in comparison with /phi. It might be worth adjusting the counters to medial, of course not the same, sizes.
  • Chris Lozos
    Chris Lozos Posts: 1,458
    edited August 2016
    Tonos on capital letters is at the left and only the initial cap letter.  [never mind, I see I was looking at Latin]
  • Chris Lozos
    Chris Lozos Posts: 1,458
    Your theta is too fat, too short, and too bold.
  • Another question, greeks use small caps?
  • Diego Maldonado
    Diego Maldonado Posts: 9
    edited August 2016
    Thank you all for the comments, here are my design updates:

  • Chris Lozos
    Chris Lozos Posts: 1,458
    Yes, you can use small caps.
  • Looks much better to me!