Why is this hard to read?

Mads

I took a stab at drawing the name 'Augusta' – however, people are having a hard time reading the Au-part.
Do you have ideas as to what I should change to make it more readable?

Also, what's your opinion in general? I'm thankful for any pointers.

Mike Wenzloff

If your cap letters were taller, it would make a world of difference.

John Savard

The letter A, like the letter g, is not closed at the top. So it is ambiguous; instead of "Augusta", it could be Cuigustci, except for the "i"s not being dotted, or even Cuicjustci, or Cwgusta.

John Hudson

Clugusta! The A really needs to be closed at the top, and would also benefit from being slightly taller and slightly further away from the U.

Vasil Stanev

What the others said; I am diggin' the st ligature, however.

AbrahamLee

For what it’s worth, I read Augusta immediately.

Craig Eliason

In addition to what’s already been suggested, you can modulate the thickness of strokes to help. Notice those up-swinging connecting strokes after g, the second u, and t are thinner. (That’s what you’d conventionally expect in a modulated Latin script.) but they’re thick at the beginning of the word, which isn’t helping with the ambiguity issue. 

Your location of thickening in the bowls is really all over the place. Compare where it happens on the bowls of your capital and lowercase a’s. Consistency would add some grace to this. 

John Savard

The fact that "a" and "g" are open at the top isn't automatically fatal to legibility. If the capital "A" at the start was taller, the "Au" at the beginning wouldn't approach ambiguity as much as it does.

So the other comments also show valid ways of improving the typeface; no doubt a comparison with other script faces might suggest others.

Stuart Sandler

Agreed on all comments above but I'd go froth to suggest that the open top of the A instead reads as if it's an initial lowercase form swash of either a dotless i or a lowercase u.

I'd also suggest looking at possibly making the A form slightly narrower and matching the angle of the rest of the lowercase forms.

Ariq Syauqi

AbrahamLee said:

For what it’s worth, I read Augusta immediately.

Luckily, despite the legibility, the word "Augusta" is easy to guess.

Mads

Craig Eliason said:

Your location of thickening in the bowls is really all over the place. Compare where it happens on the bowls of your capital and lowercase a’s. Consistency would add some grace to this. 

I dreaded that somebody would point this out. You're right. This problem is the biggest can of worms for me.

Alex Kaczun

Voila!

Feel free to use this... Enlarged the cap & reshaped the first two letters for legibility.

André Simard

To me the bottom one is better, however there is still problem with the “st”. I think the “A,g” have to be close. Also, the “A” looks like “Cl ”. Keep going.

Mads

Thank you all for your comments! It's a great help. Here's two new versions – still not completed, but which road should I take? A or B?

I think A is easily the most legible, but it comes with a cost. I think B has more character and is slightly more airy. 

Alex Kaczun

For legibility, go with "A" (top one). But, your cap A is kind of funky looking. Actually kind of ugly. Why not follow the overall shape of the l'case "a". Why go out of your way to make it look so different from the overall style of the lower case?

I can't look at it anymore... going away now. Bye.

John Savard

I don't think I can make that decision for you. Version B is still slightly ambiguous, which will delay reading comprehension. Perhaps, though, something else about the typeface can be changed so that it isn't necessary to close the tops.

Adam Jagosz

[ Just asking: this is lettering/logotype, right? Why call it a typeface? — misleading for newbies. ]

The /A is a bit deformed (flattened in the thin part) and the curly inner tip is not very graceful either. If I can suggest something — go back to analog maybe, then scan and trace? (For the /A, at least — try to get the kink and vibe from your hand, and then use digital to ease that out).

Mads

Thank you all for chipping in.

John Savard

Adam Jagosz said:

[ Just asking: this is lettering/logotype, right? Why call it a typeface? — misleading for newbies. ]

Maybe I was misled, but I assumed that the word "Augusta" was simply a specimen, and he was indeed designing a whole alphabet in this script style which could be used to write other words as well.

Ah, but I see that this is because I didn't read the first post in this thread carefully: "I took a stab at drawing the word Augusta" - so it's not clear if there is even the intent to go further.

Thomas Rettig

I think the "g"' tail is a bit too long.