A humanist grotesque (sic!)

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Comments

  • I should probably also use a single-stroke hryvnia...?


    From the official description: The sign of the hryvnia is a small Cyrillic letter «g» in italics, crossed out in the middle with two horizontal lines.
  • Yes, but the same goes for the official description of the dollar sign.
  • Yes, but the same goes for the official description of the dollar sign.
    But we write this sign with two horizontal lines :-) Yes, there is no such distribution as the same dollar, two types are still used - the abbreviation грн and the sign ₴. But if a sign is used, then it is respected and not modified by reducing the number of lines.
    This is the challenge for the designer - to embody the sign, observing the minimum mandatory requirements for it. You don't make a Euro sign with just one horizontal line, right? ;-)
  • OK, I see that the horizontal orientation and the duplicity of the bars are important to the glyph's identity. In that case, though, I would really like to keep the gap between them. The other solutions are either butt-ugly (second-to-last) or out of character for the typeface (last). I'm happy to put gaps in all the other currencies by default as well (as Jasper did), if that helps. I like them better that way anyway.
  • Nick Shinn
    Nick Shinn Posts: 2,178
    You don’t have to make the bars the same stem thickness as the rest of the glyph.
    For instance, it is arguably better to have a top-to-bottom thin stroke in the $, rather than an S sprouting a couple of tiny barnacles.
  • OK, I see that the horizontal orientation and the duplicity of the bars are important to the glyph's identity. In that case, though, I would really like to keep the gap between them. The other solutions are either butt-ugly (second-to-last) or out of character for the typeface (last). I'm happy to put gaps in all the other currencies by default as well (as Jasper did), if that helps. I like them better that way anyway.
    Middle sign - you outplayed yourself. You have the first sign with acceptable horizontal margins, but for some reason in the middle sign you flattened the top and bottom, practically eliminating the white space along the edges of the horizontal.

    3rd sign. Attention to detail! :-) See your Euro...



  • Middle sign - you outplayed yourself. You have the first sign with acceptable horizontal margins, but for some reason in the middle sign you flattened the top and bottom, practically eliminating the white space along the edges of the horizontal.
    The first sign has the advantage that the curves merely have to land on the horizontal, so I can give them a proper wedge of white there. In the second sign, I have to connect the two curves into a single sigmoid, so my hand is forced.
    I'll just stick to the third sign then and forget about stylistic consistency.
  • Do the top and bottom parts have to connect in a continous curve?
    Here I added a straight diagonal line more as a connector between the two horizontal bars, that seems like the curved spine at a glance.
  • It looks kind of funky given the initial connect to the bars ease iinto it, and the middle one just starts and end without any easing. 
  • Excuse the Photoshop hack job, but I think it looks even better with an exaggerated discontinuous curve, sort of like the optical compensations for /x? But this is just a proof of concept, I've been staring at this too long to make good judgements.
  • Christian Thalmann
    Christian Thalmann Posts: 1,967
    edited December 2023
    I've completed Adobe Latin 4 (though without smallcaps for now) and tried my hand at the Greek. While I like a few letters, others look a bit uncomfortable to me (delta?), and the overall impression is somehow restless. (Then again, Greek is a pretty twitchy script?)
    Does it work to first order, though?

  • Maybe an outstroke on the /mu (like the /iota)? And does the /xi need a left-to-right stroke at the top? (Caveat: not a native reader)
  • Christian Thalmann
    Christian Thalmann Posts: 1,967
    edited December 2023
    I had already added the stroke on /xi on my own. Good point about /mu, I added an outstroke (though not for the /micro sign of the Latin). I also did the same to /pi. Finally, I changed the joint in /rho to better match /delta and /sigma.

  • And some Cyrillic... I'm not happy with /be-cy/, but I'm not sure what else to do with it.

  • jeremy tribby
    jeremy tribby Posts: 241
    edited December 2023
    /Ч/ч might be a little bit too round
  • I took a look back at the first page of this thread and I think it has the potential to turn into a nice sister font if you round the corners.


  • Hmmm... working on the Cyrillic, I made the sidebearings of /en-cy/ wider than those of /n/ by 5 units to account for the taller stems. I rather like the rhythm in the Cyrillic (1.) and now find the Latin (2.) a bit crowded in comparison. While propagating the change back to Latin makes for nice picket fences (3.), I find it looks less attractive in a more realistic use case (5. vs 4.), where it weakens the cohesion of the word.
    Maybe something to consider in the context of optical sizes a long way down the road?

  • Interesting. Is it that your /n is a smidge too light/wide? 
    Any judgements of spacing/coherence have to made at a certain range of point sizes (as your "optical sizes" comment acknowledges). For what sizes would you like this design to be optimized? 
  • Sander Pedersen
    Sander Pedersen Posts: 33
    edited December 2023
    For /be-cy I suggest giving the top more of an upwards movement from the curve. Something like this:

    The middle curve could also have a rounded transition into the stem like /er-cy.
  • Christian Thalmann
    Christian Thalmann Posts: 1,967
    edited December 2023
    Yeah good point, that is better. I had wanted to keep the oblique join consistent with others I had recently drawn, but I realize now those had been in the Greek... ;)


  • taking another look at the cyrillic.. 
    д is a bit off center optically compared to Д (left spike seems further out than right)
    also, both д and Д have a tapered stroke on the left that gets thinner at the bottom, when I think a stroke that goes straight down into the bar below is more typical
  • ravid_dubsteper
    ravid_dubsteper Posts: 3
    edited December 2023
    the oval of /be-cy could be a bit bigger. i would also make the back less flat
  • Does this Numero work? And what about those Kais?



  • @jeremy tribby, @ravid_dubsteper, are these better?


  • jeremy tribby
    jeremy tribby Posts: 241
    edited February 3
    much improved! although I still see a bit of a difference between the left and right spike on the lowercase /д (left is going out more)
    /Л/л could both probably use a heavier foot on the left (especially the lowercase). I believe it should be heavier than the rest of the stroke (similar in concept to the way it might be a ball terminal in serif typefaces)
  • Like this then?

  • yes, exactly - nice! uppercase may be heavy by a unit or two 
  • ravid_dubsteper
    ravid_dubsteper Posts: 3
    edited February 4
    i think there is no need to make spikes from the descenders of Д д (also for Ц ц Щ щ). they might be simpler

  • also wanna share a lifehack how to make Ф ф.
    the current design has some angularity, because of the streched oval.just cut the letter o in half, put these halves on the sides and adjust the contour. that is the solution

  • Hi Ravid,
    I'm not in a hurry to get rid of the spikes, I like them.
    As for the Phis, I did split the bowl along the middle and moved the extrema outward toward the edge of the stem... didn't do much, except maybe introduce a bit of pumpkin-ness to the shapes...? I can't just use halves of /o/; those would be much too heavy.