Needlephabet

Vasil Stanev
Vasil Stanev Posts: 775
edited January 2018 in Type Design Critiques
Hi everybody,
this is a small project I did in my spare time from yesterday till now. If you see flaws with the design, please be sure to let me know. Don't be put off by the sort-of finished presentation - I have retained the editable versions, so no problem making changes. ;)

Comments

  • Marc Oxborrow
    Marc Oxborrow Posts: 220
    Fun idea! Some first impressions:

    -- The G, L, and maybe X, feel a bit smaller than the other letters
    -- J feels a bit plain compared to the exuberant treatment of the rest of the alphabet
    -- U may be closing up too much, and mistaken for an O
  • Adam Jagosz
    Adam Jagosz Posts: 689
    F might be happier with only one thread used for both crosstrokes?
  • Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian
    Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian Posts: 2,044
    In deciding which letter gets a needle and which doesn't, I would try to factor in adjacency frequencies.
    http://www.typophile.com/node/5106
  • Jasper de Waard
    Jasper de Waard Posts: 639
    I agree with @Adam Jagosz On the F. Looks like a little bit of a lazy solution as it is. Same goes for the curl in V W and X which is just copied. Also, I don't really like the overall shape of the S. 
  • Vasil Stanev
    Vasil Stanev Posts: 775
    edited January 2018
    The F looks weird with the lines joined, I have tried it. It becomes similar to a banner, which is not my intent.
    Curl in V, W and X is the same on purpose so the set also looks stylistically the same. Had it not been so, everybody would complain about them not being the same.
    J, S - agree, it can be worked on.

    Hrant, obviously such letters are not used in all caps strings. The lc will be just the lines, without needles, buttons etc. When and if I have the time to make it.  :)

    I am showing the thinking process behind a font I am designing, so we can all arrive at the best design solution, not for opportunistic reasons. A case can be made, for example, that the strings can never have the same loop when made out of real needles and strings, but that in turn would mean this rule must apply to the whole font. Which leads to other problems of consistency. Agree? :):)
  • Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian
    Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian Posts: 2,044
    In that case I would give all the caps a needle.
  • Jasper de Waard
    Jasper de Waard Posts: 639
    Vasil Stanev said:
    The F looks weird with the lines joined, I have tried it. It becomes similar to a banner, which is not my intent.
    Have you tried joining them on the left?

    The curl in V, W and X can look stylistically the same without actually being the same. This has a got a kind of handmade feel that really gets lost in repetition.
  • Vasil Stanev
    Vasil Stanev Posts: 775
    edited January 2018
    Better? :)

  • Andreas Stötzner
    Andreas Stötzner Posts: 792
    I would flip the V, W and X (needle as r-top/l-bottom part).
  • Andreas Stötzner
    Andreas Stötzner Posts: 792
    … a sew-through button for the O?
  • Jasper de Waard
    Jasper de Waard Posts: 639
    Yes, all improvements! I would go for U 2, though the curvature could be a bit smoother
  • Bhikkhu Pesala
    Bhikkhu Pesala Posts: 210
    Is this font going to have a lowercase? Presumably it will have Digits and Punctuation? 

    Try writing some words that one might see in Headings, and see if it works well in All Caps. 
  • Theunis de Jong
    Theunis de Jong Posts: 112
    Did you not find a good solution for the /L?
  • Vasil Stanev
    Vasil Stanev Posts: 775
    Andreas no buttons, sticking to needles+thread
    Jasper yes
    Bhikkhu I am torn between sc and lc. lc would probably be something like "my" Bronn script
    Theunis working on it
  • Mike Wenzloff
    Mike Wenzloff Posts: 106
    I do like it, Vasil. I'll probably like the final even more!

    For the /L perhaps a needle for the stem, the top loop coming out of it with one part of the thread coming down to form the bottom?
  • Bhikkhu Pesala
    Bhikkhu Pesala Posts: 210
    I think the A is a bit too narrow. The lower left loop could be smaller, and the needle could be angled more. See how it would look followed by V, W, or T. 
  • Vasil Stanev
    Vasil Stanev Posts: 775
    wip

  • Samuil Simonov
    Samuil Simonov Posts: 110
    That /w is not very legible. It it "Sew", or "Seue", or "Secu"?
  • Jasper de Waard
    Jasper de Waard Posts: 639
    What happened to the j?
  • André Simard
    André Simard Posts: 186
    edited January 2018
    To my point of view, the loop of the lower case has to be smaller. Look at your /k,m,r/ those later are easier to read. To me the /a/ looks like a /ce/, the /w/ seems /cel/. Keep going.
  • Vasil Stanev
    Vasil Stanev Posts: 775
  • Andreas Stötzner
    Andreas Stötzner Posts: 792
    This is getting better; however:
    1st word reads Yoce.
    The separated link-loop at w is illogical.
    d reads cl.
    Still issues with inner spacing of parts: g, h, p …
  • Simon Cozens
    Simon Cozens Posts: 741
    I don't like to be negative when I can't express how to improve things, but the lowercase just isn't really working for me at all. It all feels a bit forced. I'm sure it's possible to make the conceit work but I think it needs rethinking. In addition to Andreas' comments, /t/u/v are also particularly bad offenders. It's like trying to read "minimum" in textura.
  • Vasil Stanev
    Vasil Stanev Posts: 775
    edited January 2018
    *takes note* :)
  • Bhikkhu Pesala
    Bhikkhu Pesala Posts: 210
    Already looking good, but it's not easy to create script fonts that connect nicely and are easy to read. 
  • Craig Eliason
    Craig Eliason Posts: 1,436
    In addition to particular letterforms being ambiguous as mentioned, what’s hurting legibility is that the lowercase letters are too close to each other. 

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