Hey guys,
in the meantime I'm working up another typeface called "Kristal". This is quite an angular/polygonal typeface, intended for display purposes. I am trying to keep the anchor points to a minimum while retaining some legibility but most importantly a distinct look.



What do you think so far? I'm using a slightly smaller and lower variant of the uppercase as lowercase for now.
Any characters that seem wildly out of place right now? I've had the most trouble creating the /C /G /H /U but can't conceive of better options right now (suggestions welcome of course!)
Comments
I would try out other structures for the /Q/'s tail.
Judge for yourself here:
Some work on the /H /U /C and /Q
Not sure what else to do about the /Q's tail. As far as I would make out, this is how it would be constructed. Is the tail too big/wide?
Hmm, that /H/ and /U/ become much less legible, don't they. Try them in words to see if they retain enough identity in context.
Here are some alternate Q's (the lighter one is the original). I'm not too convinced just yet to be honest. Maybe it's the angle under which the tail is sticking out?
Some words with the /U and /H - I think you are right, they lost their legibility and their form/uniqueness. So maybe they are the odd ones out in this typeface. Or find a way in between without loosing too much character. (haven't replaced the /C just yet here but I do feel that those newer versions I just posted above are better)
Yeah, revert to the /U/ and /H/ you had, but maybe narrow the white channels in the /H/.
Although this might be interesting too (based on the solution for the /C that feels most appropriate at the moment). Looking forward to reading your comments tomorrow (seeing that it's way past bed time in this part of the world
/H and /U variants - I feel the last /H is the way to go at the moment.
More /U experiments, the last /U is where the incisions change location from shoulder to stem.
Word tests:
To me this doesn't feel right. It's not how I would write/construct the H... What do you think?
I agree that the new /H solutions don't quite feel right. Maybe you could use the middle one if the white spikes pointed into the other direction, and the crossbar was heavier?
Not so sure about that /H suggestion, it's still wonky to my eyes.
I'd consider renaming at some point - this doesn't look very crystalline to me. More boulder-ish (though note that Boulder has already been taken). It makes me think of this iPhone game.
The comma and period may be a little too round (i.e. segments too short). You might want to introduce some variation instead of just copy-and-paste to doubled glyphs like guillemets and double-quotes.
Also, I'm just pretty fond of drawing crystals. Might be too farfetched though.
Good points about the comma etc - you should see the asterisk, way too smooth now. That happens a lot, working on it too much makes a number of the forms become too smooth and balanced. Good point about variation, will look into those.
That looks like a fun game by the way! That polygonal style is pretty hot these days.
What do you guys think about the numbers? I set them slightly lower than the uppercase letters - is that problematic?
Here's a new type specimen. The /U still stands out a bit to me...
Looking great!
Should the latter three go into liga, salt or dlig? I went for dlig now because it might be annoying if you're writing 'regular' body text and words with "pm", "am" or "the" as part of the word are being replaced...
The right "stem" of the /N/ looks thinner than the left one.
I think the /M/ could look better if the upper cut would point (more) to the midde, or if the cut was translated a bit to the left. Right now the cut isn't as successful in suggesting stroke direction as the other rocks IMO.
The /H/ could improve by thickening the crossbar. Im curious to see how it would look like if the crossbar didn't resemble a line, but a rhombus.