Critique an amicable glyphic serif face for long-form text.

ishtar van looy
ishtar van looy Posts: 3
in Type Design Critiques
Hi all!
I'd love some feedback on this typeface I've been tinkering with for the past few months; I think I'm at the point where it seems fairly good to me, but I'm not sure, since I'm still learning and I've been staring at it for a while. Any feedback welcome — please let me know if you can see anything weird that I can't! Spacing & kerning isn't final either. Thanks everyone!




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Comments

  • Jasper de Waard
    Jasper de Waard Posts: 639
    edited October 2022
    This is quite a difficult genre in my opinion, but I think you did a pretty good job!

    1. The proportions are sometimes a little bit off, I think. The e, k, D, G, and K are quite narrow, EFLT are wide, and overall descenders are very low (although that could be conscious choice).

    2. The glyphic-ness of some of the glyphs is inconsistent. C is pretty smooth for example, whereas S has those calligraphic cuts.

    3. Caps look a bit light, especially in their horizontal strokes.

    4. Some specifics. The tail of Q is a bit shy. I would expect a double-story g in this design. The j is (too?) daring. The top of Y is a bit small. The cap Z has very different width from the lowercase z.

    5. What about a bold or italics? You will find that they can also help inform decisions in the regular.


    Good luck!
  • Craig Eliason
    Craig Eliason Posts: 1,436
    Cosign on everything Jasper said (except I don't mind the single-story /g). And is there a way to "roughen up" the dots on /i and /j?
  • Nick Shinn
    Nick Shinn Posts: 2,207
    Nicely done!

    I would give the “j” a hook at the bottom—this kind of Futura-ish (?) letter is too unorthodox for an otherwise very proper design—at least, from an international perspective.

    Also, before you go any further with this weight, I would suggest developing the range, from Thin to Black, and italics. That is, if you intend to make a family.
  • Christian Thalmann
    Christian Thalmann Posts: 1,983
    Nice overall!
    I was wondering what might be wrong with /Q/, at first I thought it was too wide. Now I think the stress axis might be too tilted (same for /O/).
    The shape of /G/ strikes me as very weird (and to a lesser extent /C/).
    /HIJKLMN/ feel very tight.
    I see the point about a hooked /j/ for a reading typeface, but please keep the current one in a stylistic set, it's very pretty. :grimace:
  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 2,886
    I disagree that the cap proportions are off; I just think that one needs to accept that this typeface has gone for “modern” rather than old style proportions for the caps. Like Helvetica instead of like Trajan or Futura. This is totally OK as a design choice—just quite unexpected in a glyphic typeface with the details that these letters have.

    As a result, BEFS are all wider, and CDGO are narrower, compared to an old style typeface.
  • Drawcard
    Drawcard Posts: 56
    edited October 2022
    Overall I really like the concept, and the stroke rhythm looks good to me. It feels like the right combo of organic and angular shapes.

    I agree with @Nick Shinn in that the Futura-style /J/ feels a bit out of place. Though it's still good to challenge things, I would keep it as a stylistic alternative and use a conventional /J/ instead.

    Also for i-dots, j-dots, and punctuation, you could try a diamond shaped mark, as a point of difference. e.g, here's a sample from Goudy Old Style:


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