Coolangatta

Simon Cozens

Sorry, wrong file. Another try.

Craig Eliason

/space is too big too. 

John Savard

Of course, the first thing I thought of when I saw that you were doing a typeface based on a shape intermediate between a square and a circle was Melior, designed by Hermann Zapf using the superellipse of Piet Hein.

Simon Cozens

Well, me too - my interest in type design was sparked by Don Knuth, who also used superellipses in design. Maybe a name change is appropriate.

Christian Thalmann

The antonym of melior is peior.

Jens Kutilek

John Savard said:

Of course, the first thing I thought of when I saw that you were doing a typeface based on a shape intermediate between a square and a circle was Melior, designed by Hermann Zapf using the superellipse of Piet Hein.

Hermann Zapf retrofitted the mathematical principle on his typeface Melior after the fact. Melior was drawn without any mathematical exactness, it’s very calligraphic in its details. It was designed in the 1950s, and the superellipse became popular in architecture in the 1960s, so Zapf gladly made the connection to his typeface.

By the way, there isn’t a single superellipse, there is an infinite number of superellipses with parameters between a normal ellipse and a rectangle.

John Savard

Jens Kutilek said:

By the way, there isn’t a single superellipse, there is an infinite number of superellipses with parameters between a normal ellipse and a rectangle.

Yes, but the one Piet Hein used was the one with the exponent 2 1/2.

Of course, that ellipse resulted from fitting four simple mathematical curves together which would not naturally be closed curves: only even exponents, like 4, naturally make a closed curve that is a squared-off circle.

Niche.

Hello Simon, this is coming from someone who isn't as skilled as most on this forum. But I did notice something most have not pointed out. The /y/ does look a little too airy in comparison. At a quick glance it seems too fun in comparison, maybe it's just because it was the first thing I noticed and I didn't scan enough, but maybe have 2 cuts? One that is angled and in that is round like the one you have (perhaps as a stylistic alt.) also I may be stuck in the mindset of similar typefaces like din, stratum, serpentine. Have you referenced stratum and stratum 2? You may find some neuances you haven't explore or get some fresh comparison. 

Simon Cozens

Help. It's all gone wrong! I was just about ready to go when I realised that my heavier weights had ridiculously larger x-heights than the thin master - like, 100 units larger rather than 10 - so I have had to go back and redraw the semibold and bold masters. I think I may have messed up all the proportions in doing so. I'm also not satisfied with the arch letters (/h/n/m) and I don't know how to fix them. There may be more issues too. I feel like I'm back to square one.

Kent Lew

Of course, you can’t just lower the heights of your lowercase letters and expect proportions to still look right. Everything will start to look expanded.

Unfortunately, the kind of late-stage surgery you’re contemplating can be non-trivial.

For a starting point, you can try something like this:

Figure out what percentage you would need to scale down your lowercase to achieve the x-height you think you want. Then calculate the increased stem width you’d need to start with in order to end up with your current stem weight after scaling. Then calculate an extrapolation percentage between your Thin and Heavy masters that will get you to this extra heavy weight, generate that instance, and scale down to your target.

For example: say your Heavy weight has a lowercase stem of 200 and you want to scale down 90% to adjust your xheight. You‘d need to extrapolate an instance with 200 ÷ 0.9 = 222 stem weight. Say your Thin weight has a lowercase stem of 20. The difference between your Thin and Heavy stems is 180. To get to 222 stem weight, you need to add 22 units as a percentage of overall difference: 22/180 = 0.122; +1.0 for extrapolation = 1.122 = 112.2%.

In this example, you need to extrapolate 112% from Thin to Heavy, then scale 90%. Of course, you’ll then need to review, refine, and correct, but you might find yourself with a reasonable starting point for the redraw.

(With such a large starting differential in xht between your Thin and Heavy masters, you will end up with a slightly increased xht in your extrapolation, which will affect your scaling, and if the percentages are significant, you may need to compensate in your calculations.)

Of course, you can also find UFO tools that offer just this sort of multi-dimensional scaling/interpolating with an interactive UI — like UFO Stretch, for instance. Really, what you’re looking at is not conceptually different from deriving small caps — scaling while maintaining proportion and stem weight.

Good luck.

Simon Cozens

Well, I've basically redrawn both heavier masters manually with a bit of help from RMX Tools. The latest effort is above. I am just not sure what else needs tweaking.

Thomas Phinney

I am not convinced that when your thin is that thin, in a relatively monoline design, that having the boldest weights have 100 units higher x-height is any more ludicrous than restraining it to just 10 units heavier.

Also, your heavier extreme needs more optical compensation at joins, and less general/equal thinning everywhere. The lowercase a is particularly bad for this.

Simon Cozens

Thomas Phinney said:

I am not convinced that when your thin is that thin, in a relatively monoline design, that having the boldest weights have 100 units higher x-height is any more ludicrous than restraining it to just 10 units heavier.

Also, your heavier extreme needs more optical compensation at joins, and less general/equal thinning everywhere. The lowercase a is particularly bad for this.

I just want to check what I'm hearing here, because if you're right then I am going to give up on the redraw and go back to what I had before. Are you saying that this kind of "height progression" in a family is acceptable:


I only really noticed it because when I set some text in regular and some in bold, it looked like the bold was jumping out.

Thomas Phinney

I don't think it is completely unreasonable, and it is better than the other extreme. But you could also do something in-between in terms of x-height difference. It's not a binary decision.  

That "a" is looking a bit lumpy on the bottom of the bowl, btw. I'd say the nadir point on the bottom could shift left significantly.... 

Arne Freytag

What still looks odd to me, is the connection of round and straight horizontal line in the /a.
Maybe you can draw a little bow, as I did in my rough example?

Simon Cozens

But you could also do something in-between in terms of x-height difference. It's not a binary decision.

Well, sure. The binary decision is "redraw two masters" or "don't". If "don't" is acceptable then it would save a lot of work.

Kent Lew

Generally, cap height is maintained across weights, even as xheight may increase to accommodate weight gain. (Any difference in cap height should certainly be less noticeable than your current deviation, IMO.)

I would split the difference here somewhat. 100 units between extremes does look like a lot, but forcing it down to ~10 units, as you expressed previously, would be Procrustean, I think. I would expect a normal variance of more like 40–50 units in a style like this.

So, yes, I think you need to confront redrawing your masters. But, I think you have more to worry about than just adapting to adjusted proportions. There are several areas in the basic execution that still need refinement, as others have indicated.

Simon Cozens

I've spend a few more months with this, and I've come to a bit of a dead end. I just don't know what needs looking at now. (Apart from the Bold - I know that the Bold is a total mess.)

Dave Crossland

Simon Cozens said:

Thomas Phinney said:

I am not convinced that when your thin is that thin, in a relatively monoline design, that having the boldest weights have 100 units higher x-height is any more ludicrous than restraining it to just 10 units heavier.

Also, your heavier extreme needs more optical compensation at joins, and less general/equal thinning everywhere. The lowercase a is particularly bad for this.

I just want to check what I'm hearing here, because if you're right then I am going to give up on the redraw and go back to what I had before. Are you saying that this kind of "height progression" in a family is acceptable:


I only really noticed it because when I set some text in regular and some in bold, it looked like the bold was jumping out.

To me, this looks like an optical size axis blended with a weight axis. 

Ie, leftmost is thin weight @ 144pt size, and rightmost is black weigh @ 16pt size

 I've come to a bit of a dead end. 

I suggest deconstructing the design into the Amstelvar axes, and then re-blending them to get back to what you have now, with the bonus that you'll then have a design space where you can find a thin weight @ 16pt and black weigh @ 144pt  

Simon Cozens

Pretty sure that, as a beginner, if I can’t get one axis right, I’m not going to get an optical size axis right as well. But perhaps I’m being trolled...

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

I've only looked at the first specimen and the last one, but frankly it looks like you got a bunch of bad advice along the way, or in the best case, it's become a design-by-committee... This would explain why you feel lost. (The highest calling of a critic –or teacher– is not to help people make fonts the way they themselves do, but to help them make the best fonts they would want to.)

The last thing you want is a me-too design. When I looked at your original I immediately thought that playfulness (something I myself suck at) would be its saving grace. It might be too late in the game* and there surely is some advice worth following in this thread, but I would go back, and the first thing I would do is instead of normalizing the vertical proportions (yes, that's me saying that :-) I would make all the extenders vary in length... and keeping that original "g" crazy like a fox.

* Or you could keep this and make a playful sister for it.

Jens Kutilek

I think starting with a Thin weight is not the easiest option, especially for a beginner. At this weight, your design is nearly monoline, so you lose the ability to add "flavor" by playing with the distribution of contrast.

I would suggest to start with a Regular, either based manually on your existing Thin, or from scratch. From scratch is not as bad as it sounds; if you have internalized the idea of your typeface, redrawing it will not take nearly as long as drawing it the first time.

As Hrant would put it, with the Thin weight you are painting black lines. A Regular or Medium has more interplay between white and black shapes/masses.

Starting with the Regular also has the advantage that it usually is the most often used weight, so it's good to get it right before going towards the more extreme weights.

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

Jens Kutilek said:

As Hrant would put it, with the Thin weight you are painting black lines. A Regular or Medium has more interplay between white and black shapes/masses.

As Beavis and Butthead would say: "Huh uhuhuh, you're paying attention."  (Thanks.)

https://twitter.com/hhpapazian/status/727545276819447809

Dave Crossland

Simon Cozens said:

Pretty sure that, as a beginner, if I can’t get one axis right, I’m not going to get an optical size axis right as well. 

Take a look at the smallest size designs of Freight and Halyard

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

Take a look at Sitka for plenty more.