Varnished Truth — A Geometric Wedge Serif on an Incline

Kyle Wayne Benson
Kyle Wayne Benson Posts: 14
in Type Design Critiques
This one was inspired by a rejected logo for a fitness company. Any advice or thoughts are appreciated. I'm not sold on the more conventional looking letters /HEFL/.

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Varnished Truth Bold Character Inventory
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Comments

  • Tristan Bowersox
    Tristan Bowersox Posts: 21
    Though it may be technically precise, it appears chaotic and arbitrary. The upturned terminals on e,c,l,i, etc. especially make the bottom stroke look thicker.

    It's interesting that you call this geometric, because I see some very complicated, three dimensional, origami-like geometry in some of the characters, but it's very erratic and esoteric. I think following that aspect could lead to an interesting display font—I'm imagining a layered font in two parts so you could add shading to the prismatic angles. The accent marks, which look like square planes, rotated in space above the letters, compliment the dimensional effect—not to mention the cubic umlaut.

    From your comment, it seems like you're shooting for a middle ground between something experimental like I described above and a straightforward, Copperplate Gothic type wedge serif. I think most of your capitals work in that way, omitting of course the few you mentioned, as well as the S, which seems awkward, the O, which seems boxy in the 3d sense, and everything based on the O as well.

    The curved areas in general are trouble in this font: The sharp angles end up looking crumpled, or like all the handles were retracted on a curved font, which is to say they look unintentional. I think the J works, though, and the C comes close, although it starts to pull the font in a new direction as the angles leading up to the flared terminal on the bottom blend together, making the whole bottom stroke appear to flare. I mentioned this effect in reference to the lowercase c, but for whatever reason I think it works better—or at least looks more intentional on the uppercase.

    So basically, I would pick out the characters that you feel really embody what you're going for and go back to the drawing board with the rest. I would try to come up with a system that works with the curves and terminals in the uppercase, then look again at the lower.

    But that's just me ;) Hope this helps

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