Secuela Variable OFL -feedback-

Fernando Haro

Hello, I am a self-taught typographic designer, I have been working hard and only for several years, in the design of fonts, until now little by little I have learned from my own mistakes without further help. I would like to receive criticism, suggestions, comments, etc. to help me improve my fonts. Thank you

Secuela is my new Variable Typeface (8 standard weights), Sans serif and condensed (Regular & Italics) with SIL Open Font license, of geometric construction and neo-Gothic style with short descenders and a humanistic finish in the curves to avoid the coldness of purely grotesque typographies, evoking a feeling of warmth and personality , which results in a friendly and very readable typography, is specially drawn for the composition of any text, signage or headlines, both for printing and for screen.

The typography has 704 glyphs (Latin Extended-A) with capital letters in small caps, advanced OpenType functions, several number set, the Bitcoin symbol and a meticulous configuration of metrics and Kerning.

Source files: https://github.com/defharo/secuela-variable

Thomas Phinney

First off, let me say that you have clearly done a massive amount of work and put a ton of time into this. Bravo! It is a fine start. I usually encourage people to get more feedback earlier rather than make a big typeface and seek feedback after, so as to be able to incorporate feedback earlier in the process, and reduce the total amount of work needed.

There are a few... inconsistencies that make the whole less than the sum of the parts.

Just talking about the regular weight and the letters in “Secula” to start....

It seems a bit undecided on whether to make curves a bit squarish, or not. The c is quite squarish (super-elliptical). The e as well. But the S and a show none of that.

There are some slight oddities in weighting of curves, of various sorts. For example, in the S, the spine doesn't feel as heavy and the outside loops. The bottom left of the e feels a little heavier than the bottom right.The bottom left of u and a feel just slightly lumpy.

The weight range and naming feels a bit off to me. The black is more of an extra bold. The extra light is more of a light. If this is the full dynamic range, perhaps you don't need so many named, predefined instances. The difference between the light and extra light, or regular vs medium, just isn't enough to have both anyway.

Craig Eliason

Also take care that your interletter spacing relates to the interior spaces of your letters. Because of the boldness in the "black" weight, the counters are of course reduced, but the sidebearings aren't correspondingly reduced. As a result, looking at the list of weights in the roman at the top left of the image, by the time you get to the bottom "Black" the letters don't cohere together as well because they're too far apart.
There's good spacing advice in Cyrus Highsmith's Inside Paragraphs.

Fernando Haro

Hi Thomas, thank you very much for your help.

Looking at the letters you mention, I think all your comments are correct, mainly about the letters Ss and their relationship with the rest, for me the most difficult to balance, in fact every time I look at a letter S I end up disappointed and go to the editor to improve it , and yes the curves of the letters Ss do not have much to do with the super elliptical spirit of the rest of the typography.

Also agree about the range of weights, despite having asked me the same question about the weights, I think I have been carried away by a certain "greed", something on the other hand minor talking about variable fonts. Yes I will correct and reduce the weight range and see that letter c and etc.

regards

Fernando Haro

Hi Graig, I agree that the blacker versions need to reduce the sidebaring space, I'm going to review this too. Thank you

Fernando Haro

Thanks again for your suggestions.
I have made an update in the font:

• Modification of the curves in the characters: S, s, S.sc, e, u, m, n, c_t, c, C.sc
• Modification of the design of the characters: a, ae
• New glyphs: IJ (0132), ij (0133), longs_t (FB05)
• Modification of the character: germandbls (00DF)
• Reduction of the sidebaring space in the ExtraBold version
• Reduction of the standard weights in the variable font, from 8 to 6

Regards

AbrahamLee

This is looking really great! I like it a lot. It feels like the small caps are a little to short, though. Historically, they’ve generally been slightly taller than the x-height. I think this would make a good difference.

Fernando Haro

Thanks for your suggestion Abraham, yes you are right, the small caps are a little higher than the lower case, although I think this is more evident in Serif typefaces with more contrast between antlers. However I'll keep it in mind for my next update. regards

Adam Jagosz

Comma below and turned comma above are inconsistent.

The smallcap /Dbar has an unreduced stroke.

Fernando Haro

Hi Adam, commas is an act on purpose, but I'll think about it.

I correct the Dbar in the next update, many thanks.

Now update v.1.708

Fernando Haro

Hi Adam, I've finally changed the upper comma in gcommaaccent, now it's better. Thx.

- 20 nov - v.1.708;rl1001

• Optimization to all the characters with Bar.
• Fix metrics partialdiff (U+2202)
• Fix comma in gcommaaccent (U+0123)
• Optical corrections in multiple characters.

 - 19 nov - v.1.708

• Optical corrections in several characters, mainly those with oblique lines.
• Added the glyph in small caps for Maltese language: Hbar.sc
• Slight increase in the height of the small caps.
• Kerning settings.
• Added two sheets in the PDF Specimen with text tests in different sizes to test the spacing, kerning and typographic stain.

Fernando Haro

Update v1.708;rl1002

• Fixed the Hinting PS
• Added editable separate OTF / TTF files for Fontlab 5
• Added True Type font versions with TTFAutohint
• Add editable versions optimized for TTFAutohint
• Add editable versions OTF - Hinting PS

Sources: https://github.com/defharo/secuela-variable

Steve Gardner

Hi @Fernando Haro, great work so far!  Looking only at the regular weight, a few things stood out for me.

• /æ - the junction at the bottom looks too heavy on the /a side
• The stems of the /a, /d, /g & /p all terminate with a slight kink, but the rest remain inline.  Is there a reason for this?
• Something is nagging me about the /r.  Maybe it needs a little more weight on the shoulder?
• The /t looks a bit undercooked at the bottom.  I know it's the same shape as the /j, but it seems lighter to me curving to the right on the baseline than it does curving to the left below the baseline.
• It looks to me as if line weights (both curved and straight) of your lower case and caps are the same.  I'd expect there to be some difference.
• The /5 looks a bit out of character to me.

Good luck with this.  I'm really looking forward to seeing how this develops.

Fernando Haro

Thank you very much Steve for your suggestions, I will analyze them and notify you with the changes. The twist of the stems in lowercase occur in the italic versions. Do you think they distort the whole?
Yes, I have to revise the 5, I also have that feeling.
I have to tell everyone that it is immeasurable, the learning and the help that it entails for me to analyze and resolve all your suggestions. Thank you.

Fernando Haro

Hi Steve, In reference to your comment:

"It looks to me as if line weights (both curved and straight) of your lower case and caps are the same. I'd expect there to be some difference."

There is a difference in the thickness of the antlers between uppercase and lowercase, they are different, in the clear versions the difference is smaller because I thought of this typeface mainly for use in the web.

Light version:
Caps Vertical stroke: 58. lowercase: 54
Caps Horizontal: 50. lowercase: 47
Extra Bold:
Caps Vertical stroke: 163. lowercase: 154
Caps horizontal: 132. lowercase: 115 

some letters have custom width corrections, mainly in the vertical stroke and the curves I leave with a thickness that is half the thickness of the vertical and horizontal stroke.

• 24 november 2018 - Update v1.787
  

-Redefinition of the standard weights, now one less, to better appreciate the contrast between them.

-The letter /W tilt was corrected for a more condensed appearance.

-Homogenized the upper curve of the letters /a,/o,/e

-Correction of the blank space on the right in the letter /Æ and kerning

-Redrawing the letters /æ /œ in the Roman version

-Adjustment of the width of the letters /O,/G,/C,/D

-Change in the height of the crossbar of the letter /G

-Solution in the tail of the letter Q for heavier styles

-Unicode correction, hsuperior (U + 02B0), isuperior (U + 2071)

-New design of number 5 in all instances.

-Correction of vertical symmetry in the clear version of the letter /S

-Correction of the weight of the tails and reduction of overshoot in the letters: /t,/j,/f and the ligatures with /f and /t

-Rectilinear modification of / ampersand tail

-Adjustment and alignment of the shoulder of the letter /r

-Adjustment of curves and alignment of the letter /a italic versión

-Adjustment /g character.

-Redraw of all small numbers: superscript, numerators, denominators, and subscript

-Redraw of all small lowercase letters.

-Added inferior glyphs: 

schewainferior (U+2094), ainferior (U+2090), einferior (U+2091), hinferior (U+2095)

iinferior (U+ID62), kinferior (U+2096), linferior (U+2097), minferior (U+2098)

ninferior (U+2099), oinferior (U+2092), pinferior (U+209A), rinferior (U+ID63)

sinferior (U+209B), tinferior (U+209C), uinferior (U+ID64), vinferior (U+ID65)

xinferior (U+2093)

-Added full set of small lowercase letters (+79 glyphs) in the positions: superscript, numerators, denominators, and subscript. 

-Small lowercase letters added to Kerning.

-Small lowercase letters added to OpenType features: /dnom, /numr, /subs, /sups, /sinf, /frac

-Diagonal adjustment of the positions of the small letters and numbers.

-Adjust on the diagonal between the vertical positions of the small letters and numbers.

-Complete reconstruction of the italics, discarding the lower curved tail in the lower case.