looking for a greek font review

Andrea T.

Hello guys,

this is an early stage design of greek alphabet of my brand new typeface. I'm looking for opinions, reviews or everything you want to say about it.


I really appreciate everything can help me to make it better. Thank you very much.

AbrahamLee

I like the overall weight and it feels very consistent across all the glyphs, but there are a couple of things I find a bit distracting:

1. Some glyphs feel too wide: /Theta, /Omicron, /Phi, /Omega, /alpha, and /mu in particular

2. Diacritics: why aren't they both on top and why is the /acute vertical?

What if you try the floating crossbar on /Theta while making it narrower?

Also, I think it would be useful to increase the depths of some of the stroke joints, like between the bowl and spur on the /sigma.

It's looking good though! I like it a lot!

Emilios Theofanous

@AbrahamLee it’s called /tonos, not /acute and even thought a generally rare case, it can also be vertical, depending on the design. The position looks off on the lowercase since it’s not fixed for all the letters.

Andrea, I would suggest Gerry Leonidas’ detailed page on Greek type design and maybe you should study some other low contrast Greeks to see proportions, directions and problem solutions other designers have followed.

I guess you designed Latin as well? If yes, how are the two scripts related and what is their intended use?

Do you have a sample page with text? It would help you identify problems on the proportions of some letters.

Some suggestions:
– /eta and /mu are somewhat relatives in general (imagine like the latin /n and /u), here they look a bit like strangers. /eta also looks like it’s missing an instroke, the first stem should meet the x-height (unless you are going for the very rare ‘Ubuntu font’ feel – in this case I don’t see this idea transferred to the rest of the glyphs).

– /phi /psi /omega should share similar width.

– For /omega maybe you should try bending the in and out strokes inwards.

– For the /beta, on the transition to curve, the effect that is happening does not happen anywhere else and it looks a bit inconsistent.

– /zeta /xi and /finalsigma share the same problem on the lower stroke; maybe try to design this section first, balance the transition and move towards into designing the connected curves – it should look as smooth as a latin /s.

Do you speak/write Greek? If not, take a look at this ‘guide’ form Gerry, regarding the starting points for the stroke of the Greek lowercase. It would help you visualise the norm, then you can apply your own feel, style and aesthetics.

AbrahamLee

Emilios Theofanous said:

@AbrahamLee it’s called /tonos, not /acute and even though a generally rare case, it can also be vertical, depending on the design. The position looks off on the lowercase since it’s not fixed for all the letters.

Thank you, @Emilios Theofanous.  I stand corrected. Guess I'm a little tired today. 

Andrea T.

Thanks to both of you for your suggestion.
@Emilios Theofanous the leonidas page it's really useful!

This is the basic latin set at its final stage. 

No, i don't speak or write greek, and i know it's a bit awkward but i want to make a really complete set, i'm working on the cyrillic set as well.

(I'm working on a multiple master font, i'm going to show the wt0 and wt1 at the same time.) 

This is the corrections you are suggesting, does it feel relatives now in some way?

Is this the correct width?

and about /beta: i know the transition to curve doesn't seem elegant at all, i'm working on it, but this kind of transition is repeated all over the basic latin set, so in order to give consistency i decide to repeat it on beta as well. maybe it simply doesn't work...

/zeta /xi and /finalsigma are my villain i really don't know how to design the lower stroke, maybe with the help of leonidas site i'll find out a way to do that 

Chris Lozos

The omega is still a latin w.  Lower the center stem at top and curve in the sides, more like your recent corrected phi.  Also, shorten the extension at right of the mu.