Hello,
I am really young guy, really want to be type designer future. I am just design some monospace and little exprimental grotesque before. The world don't need an another grotesque I know but this is what I want for me. I design all things from beginning, not change another typeface, I just look different grotesque to see what solutions they use for letter, like Helvetica Neue. I design on Fontlab, I use the masters for different weight, create another weight and make them bold height change. I am not sure this is correct way to create weight.
Try to design good for eye, little different solutions for WMN letters. Bold and black weight have more inktraps in small letter, also I am not sure is it called ink traps. Really want to hear your opinion, I am ask everyone because I want to change the typeface more stable for selling I hope.
I am realizing now, the
metrics and kerning are not designed. I am sorry but I am gonna ask either if this works for reivewing.
I want to hear your advice also about type design. Thank you.




Comments
These letters need more work:
/a/e/g/w have inconsistent stroke width (optically imbalanced). You mentioned you looked at other fonts to learn from them. Have a look at Akkurat, for instance, and compare the lowercase /a to yours. The lowercase /k has too thick strokes in the upper example (where you used languages as words).
Almost all your numbers need more work, except perhaps /8 and /0. The /6 and /9 could be indeed copies of one and another, 180º moved around, but they are currently not ‘stable’. Try reducing the height of the round shaped belly and give the upper (and lower with /9) stroke more space to breathe. Then you can also make it more consistent in optical stroke width.
Your uppercase /W, /G needs more work; the middle stroke of the uppercase /G is too high (although it could be slightly higher than usual as a pronounced characterisation of the typeface), and the uppercase /T is slightly too narrow. Overall some glyphs seem too wide and some too narrow. I suggest you don’t look only at fonts like Helvetica Neue to learn, but also at Franklin Gothic and other sans serif typefaces. You’ll find that the general, optical width of an individual letter often falls into a theme. Your uppercase /R will show as a bit too broad and your uppercase /D a little too narrow.
One more thing about your notion, “the world needs not another Grotesk” – that has been debated for ages. The question is never really: Do we need another one? The question rather is: What brings the new one to the table others don’t have?
I am not sure which letter stroke weight have to be less or more. But I understand it is have to be solved with eye. And lastly I aware there are hundreds of problems, but not sure how do I fix it now, because it is the first time I face this problem.
Yes, The typeface have the bring something new on the table, this is what I try to say, I see this typeface is a learning process, hope this process ends with a typeface.
I will look also Akkurat and Franklin Gothic. Really thanks for your time.
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but the conventional modulation is thin on the upstrokes and thick on the downstrokes.
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A thing I would suggest to no end to novices is to actually draw on paper, as it’s very hard to grasp and assimilate a sense of balance and proportions while drawing letterforms directly on screen without having done experience on paper, especially for weight distribution.
When I saw the first draft of Muana at the top, I saw the imperfections, but the design’s direction strongly reminded of Apple’s San Francisco, just with the difference that the lowercase /a/ retains its single serif (not sure if that’s what it is called).
You help me to understand I hope. I just try to solve the stroke weight problem little bit. Not enough time to solve completely I guess but I add more stroke on capital letter and little change with small letter -like less stroke weight on ''a''s right side-. I can't work on numbers but little change on 6 and 9, I make circle on 6 less height on bold versions, not solve problem for now but will work on it. And also I will work on WwVv letter on they're bold versions. These are new versions, I work on last night, but read all new comments, and hopefully learn something.
And I can see there is a problem when I'm looking at the font, but really hard to understand how to change to look normal. This is why comment help me to understand. And If all letters going to be normal after every change, then not all font going to be not different from another grotesque, I hope some time I can work with some letter going to be more different then normal.
Wish you a nice day.
Your numbers /9/ and /6/ are almost there! Keep in mind that with your choice of genre, the strong stroke width is with the down-strokes, so everything vertical is generally stronger than the horizontal (the exception making letters like the uppercase /S/). Looking at your /9/ and /6/ I see the bowl and the o-shape are not equalized in vertical stroke width. They can be subtly different, but right now the difference appears to be too strong.
The lowercase /a/ has still a too thin belly stroke (downwards, vertically). If you compare it to your alternate /a/ and /b/c/e/, you’ll see it. By the way, your alternate /a/ also suffers from too thin vertical strength on the belly side, but it’s more subtle than with the regular, two-story /a/.
The uppercase /S/ appears to be a tad (really very little) too broad in comparison with all other letters. Similarly, your number /3/ is a tad too slim.
Character is not necessarily gained through little imperfections (it depends on the typeface class/category). They can be more annoying than helping and putting the whole font off, in terms of feeling wholesome and well crafted. So I think the fact you are able to improve it harmonically and aesthetically is a good thing! I‘d play with alternate letters (as you already did) and perhaps think about giving the whole design a push towards Geometric or Neo Grotesk interpretations (as Graphik is, for instance), but this is entirely up to you. I’m only reflecting what I would do to give the font a more unique place of its own among its predecessors.
The /g and the /s (and also the /e), for example, still have problems not chiefly with weight, but with lack of harmony in the curves.
Look at these letters in your favorite models (e.g. Helvetica, Folio, Akzidenz Grotesk) to see what I mean.
It makes no sense to refer to a Process typeface considering when Recta was designed.