Hm, still too funky. Maybe I should just try to darken the contact corner of /K/ a bit, perhaps with a straight linking segment, and leave it at that. After all, Bree gets away with straight capitals as well.
I rolled all humanist caps back to the default except for the spurless /G/, slightly stronger-jointed /K/, and round-topped /Germandbls/. I think it works this way. The original design concept was a humanist-flavored neogrotesque, so it should remain a neogrotesque first and foremost.
I suppose I could adopt the new /K/ as the default (and only) /K/, given that the thinning in the original /K is somewhat eyecatching. Then the /G/ would be the only change.
There's some pressure in the German forum to promote the round /G/ to default and use the spurred /G/ as an alternate, but I still think the spur adds to the neogrotesque-ness and the round shape matches the increased roundness of the humanist lowercase...
I've finally found enough contiguous minutes of leisure time to look at this again. I'm currently struggling with the /five/ — the /S/ was easy in comparison!
And I've revisited the /Germandbls/, going back to my beloved Dresden/Zürich. The flat-topped previous version just irritated me with its «ski-jump ramp» optical illusion and the clipped corner.
I think the five can have a little more angle on the vertical stroke, and the horizontal stroke at the top can come in a little bit at the right. the joint between the vertical stroke and the bowl can be more pronounced, with the vertical stroke going down lower before making the loop, I think - maybe it’s just me but the way you’ve minimized the overlap there makes it appear more DIN-like to me. but, you could also lean into that aesthetic even more and go in the other direction..
I noticed both Helvetica and Arial have a surprisingly strongly sloped stem — wouldn't have thought! Univers is more vertical and closed, but frankly all of them are pretty ugly up close. I rather like the overall shape I came up with, but the joint is a bit unhappy. It's just that things turn worse as soon as I try to simplify or angle it...
Horizontal of /two reads as too light to me, like it might break under the weight of the rather heavy looking spine. /seven horizontal might be too skinny by a hair too.
Given the construction of the 3, 5 and S (and 6 and 9), the bottom-center terminal of the cap Eszett seems like it should not have an angled cut. Kind of feels like it ought to be cut vertically.
Alternatively, change the 3 and 5 to match the Eszett, making the whole thing a bit more humanist.
Thomas, I tried a vertical cut first and got an unpleasant flaring illusion from it... now that I've tried again, I no longer see the illusion, so this is definitely the right way to go. Thanks!
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Alternatively, change the 3 and 5 to match the Eszett, making the whole thing a bit more humanist.