I have started this typeface yesterday, to clear up my mind a bit. At the beginning I thought about making only the upper case set but then decided to see how it goes with a relatively standard lower case set. I quite like it.
The lowercase could lead to just a mainstream font, but the uppercase exhibits a novel feature: centering on a line, instead of fitting within bounds. I would explore that.
Looks cool ! Only thing I notice is the lower h, m, n shoulders look a little out of place where they meet the vertical. reference b/p perhaps just looks a little high ...
The lowercase could lead to just a mainstream font, but the uppercase exhibits a novel feature: centering on a line, instead of fitting within bounds. I would explore that.
A lot to investigate here. Few tests I made by your comment led me to something that looks like Arabbed English (see attached file as well)
... I notice is the lower h, m, n shoulders look a little out of place where they meet the vertical. reference b/p perhaps just looks a little high ...
Very, very interesting. This /o reminds me of some Moscow Metro station fonts, but I think it should be mixed with the smaller /o and perhaps /c could be sometimes enlarged as well when not next to each other.
I wonder how Cyrillic will look when given your treatment.
Very, very interesting. This /o reminds me of some Moscow Metro station fonts, but I think it should be mixed with the smaller /o and perhaps /c could be sometimes enlarged as well when not next to each other.
I wonder how Cyrillic will look when given your treatment.
I like the large o' too, it gives the text a jewellery appeal, but I guess people would like to read it too. You're invited to test this treatment on Cyrillic script!
Made some more tests... Scaled up the LC size, maybe too much, and fixed the direction of the connecting extension of all LC to the right. Also fixed the orientation of the UC to the right and added some connection extension, but I think it damaged the all-caps appearance. Looks like it is inevitable to split them to two different fonts and create a LC set to the UC and vise versa.
I have scaled down the LC, but only on the y axis and spaced up a bit, it might still be too wide. Centred the punctuation and started working on the digits as well... (Check the pdf too)
I’d try to use contextual alternates so that it’s not like some letters are always "down" and others always "up", but to get a nice alternating pattern. E.g. now the word "from" is completely made from "up" letters and it will look strange if it’s next to a word made of only "down" letters.
@Jens Kutilek The o' (in 'from') is centred, and the only-down letters are u'v'w'y' which will rarely form a word, but alternates and contextual alternates will surely be useful here.
Final adjustments before leaving the typeface for a while... Enlarged the vertical size of c' e' s' and added a back slab to the r'. I think it is starting to take shape.
Got back to it today, added some slabs and tweaked a bit. Now I'm testing the width of the counters, x-height and the relation to the vertical letters (e' c' s')
1 - Small x-height, e'c's' at x-height 2 - Larger x-height 3 - e'c's' larger than x-height 4 - wider counters
I like best 1 and 4 (Ignore the (lack of) hinting issues)
Can't believe I missed this thread until now. Great stuff! Particularly the caps.
In the LC, I feel like the /o should be wider (it looks vertically elongated right now), and some letters feel very preliminary to me (g; v–z; R). The /n/m stay away from the all-important midline a bit too long for my taste—perhaps make them narrower or allow them to dip through the midline a bit?
Have you tried a narrower solution for /a/b/g/d/p/q? I like the intermittent wideness of the LC, but maybe that would be better achieved with longer connecting strokes between letters.
As a longer-term goal, you might want to consider ligatures and contextual alternates to break up combinations that stay above or below the midline for too long.
Scaling with Fontark is executed on the skeleton while the outlines are calculated and regenerated in real time, that means that the "stroke's" integrity never damages by scaling and proportions modifications, including optical corrections, contrast etc'. The inter connection of all glyphs, the flexible glyphs selection and multiple glyphs editing lets you focus on the design related issues.
Comments
ivan
Few tests I made by your comment led me to something that looks like Arabbed English
Imagine this (with the UCs) as calligraphy!
Simon Dunford said: Good point, thanks!
I wonder how Cyrillic will look when given your treatment.
You're invited to test this treatment on Cyrillic script!
Made some more tests... Scaled up the LC size, maybe too much, and fixed the direction of the connecting extension of all LC to the right. Also fixed the orientation of the UC to the right and added some connection extension, but I think it damaged the all-caps appearance. Looks like it is inevitable to split them to two different fonts and create a LC set to the UC and vise versa.
The images and pdfs are from the most useful Impallari.com font testing site, Thanks!
So far, http://typedrawers.com/discussion/comment/25306/#Comment_25306 is the version I like the most.
In Verdi22, I think the lowercase is too big, and too connected.
I have scaled down the LC, but only on the y axis and spaced up a bit, it might still be too wide.
Centred the punctuation and started working on the digits as well...
(Check the pdf too)
Final adjustments before leaving the typeface for a while... Enlarged the vertical size of c' e' s' and added a back slab to the r'. I think it is starting to take shape.
Now I'm testing the width of the counters, x-height and the relation to the vertical letters (e' c' s')
1 - Small x-height, e'c's' at x-height
2 - Larger x-height
3 - e'c's' larger than x-height
4 - wider counters
I like best 1 and 4
(Ignore the (lack of) hinting issues)
In the LC, I feel like the /o should be wider (it looks vertically elongated right now), and some letters feel very preliminary to me (g; v–z; R). The /n/m stay away from the all-important midline a bit too long for my taste—perhaps make them narrower or allow them to dip through the midline a bit?
Have you tried a narrower solution for /a/b/g/d/p/q? I like the intermittent wideness of the LC, but maybe that would be better achieved with longer connecting strokes between letters.
As a longer-term goal, you might want to consider ligatures and contextual alternates to break up combinations that stay above or below the midline for too long.
Later on I'll make a video to show you how easy and fast it is to make these modifications and tests with Fontak.
Real time screen capture...
Eszett?