Renwick Display - A Humanist Sans

Tofu Type Foundry

@Jasper de Waard

Thanks for taking the time to respond!

On spacing:

I really like your comment about using a reference track in music production. After studying some popular sans serifs at the start of this process I’ve been working in a vacuum to avoid copying another designer’s work. Looking back, this all-or-nothing mentality has made the journey of Renwick harder.

I’ve put together a PDF comparison of other typefaces. My design is definitely tighter than most, which is likely a symptom of my vision for it being a display cut. The next version will have more generous spacing (again haha). According to Wikipedia, Myriad “was intended as a general-purpose typeface that could fulfill a range of uses”. I like this approach and am now considering dropping the display component and doing something similar; making this a multi-weight family of different optical cuts might be too ambitious with my current skill level.

On stroke contrast:

Renwick started out with a design that had low upright contrast with very subtle calligraphic influence. Slowly the letterforms have become more and more calligraphic so that’s why curve thickness and modulation are strange in some areas. So you’re right about the problems.

On glyph design:

Thanks for all the suggestions! I’ll take a crack at those changes and report back. I don’t believe anyone has mentioned the /t height yet but it stands out looking back now. That /g is proving to be very tricky.

@Craig Eliason

When you say punctuation should “be more substantial” are you talking about the actual size of them, similar to American Typewriter Light’s darker punctuation? They’re still using the super tight spacing since I only updated the spacing of the letters which doesn’t help the issue.

Craig Eliason

When you say punctuation should “be more substantial” are you talking about the actual size of them, similar to American Typewriter Light’s darker punctuation? They’re still using the super tight spacing since I only updated the spacing of the letters which doesn’t help the issue.

I'd say make them longer (and with the quotation marks, farther apart). 

They needn't be as exaggerated in their departure from standard stroke weight as American Typewriter Light, but you also shouldn't be afraid to thicken them a bit just to give them enough presence to fit with the larger letters. Your posted comparison doesn't included commas, but you can see that the other fonts fatten the periods a bit.

Matthew Smith

I actually disagree with the comments about the spacing being too tight. In fact, I think it can be tighter!

You’ve labeled this as a display font, and have talked about it being such, but most of the typesetting you are showcasing are paragraphs—which I think creates the expectation that it should take on more of the characteristics of a text face.

Admittedly, I might be projecting here and wanting to see this used larger than you are intending. So feel free to correct me if I am wrong! But I imagine this being used for short headlines, book covers, title slides, etc.—not necessarily for paragraphs of text.

Your recent comparison sheet mostly puts Renwick next to not-so-display sans—so I put just a single word alongside a few display sans that feel a bit more comparable to what you are working on.

You mentioned that you would like to eventually redraw the text version, so I vote you make things even tighter! Embrace the display! lol

Paul Hanslow

of note: MD Nichrome by Rutherford Craze is the narrowest of the above examples because of it's highly compressed nature in certain letters, while not in others. He spent a considerable amount of time assessing how far he could take this 'push and pull' method for each letter shape. I'm stating this to make people aware that MD Nichrome doesn't follow what I would consider a typical display typeface with letter-shapes of harmonised widths; it embraces quirkiness. 

sidenote: I'd be interested to see real word examples of MD Nichrome in Latin languages other than English that have large consonant clusters (eg Polish), as its overall rhythm would be ever more tight.

Jasper de Waard

Yes, my feedback was geared towards text sizes. Currently the design is giving me much more text vibes than display vibes, but of course you can change that. I would say it needs a little more character to be a display face, and character can come from lots of places so it's hard to pinpoint the feedback. Matthew's examples draw a lot of character from offbeat proportions, but you could also use stroke contrast, terminals, or anything else that you want to experiment with

For learning the proportions of letters, I think it probably makes sense to start with text proportions. Once you have those under control, you can start to experiment with them for display sizes. But ultimately, you should do what motivates you. If you want to make a display face, go for it!

Tofu Type Foundry

@Matthew Smith
You bring up a good point about the way I’ve been presenting the font. It’s not meant for large bodies of copy (hence the name, Renwick Display). I’ve been setting it in paragraphs to show the overall colour as well as the full English glyph set. This might be giving mixed signals about my intentions, though.

Admittedly, I might be projecting here and wanting to see this used larger than you are intending. So feel free to correct me if I am wrong! But I imagine this being used for short headlines, book covers, title slides, etc.—not necessarily for paragraphs of text.

Not at all, you seem to understand my vision quite well! Those are exactly the kind of uses actually Optimal use would be 36pt or more.

Thanks for providing those additional comparison examples! Seeing it beside other display faces gives me more confidence to commit to the tight spacing. I really need to make up my mind though; too much talk with no action on my part.

@Jasper de Waard

I get what you’re saying about it not having the typical “character” of a display face, but I don’t think that stops it from being used at display sizes. Even Helvetica needs a 72pt cut. While I’m not opposed to adding unique design features, Renwick was a challenge I gave myself to create something conventional and “standard". I’d like to infuse a bit more calligraphic influence throughout the design—specifically the stroke contrast. And while you're right that it does "probably make sense to start with text proportions” at this point I'd like to just get this project on its way and to a published state.

Tofu Type Foundry

After a week I've decided to "embrace the display" and lean into the closer spacing that other headline sans are using, this time for good. To reflect this I tightened up the overall design with a later text version planned. The design has been given a slight calligraphic flavour across the board and I addressed a number of issues with character widths and construction.

Renwick Display is intended for short phrases and titles so updated the PDF layout to better showcase this. As always, I'd love to hear your opinions!

Quick summary of changes:

• Gave all letters subtle calligraphic influence
• Increased height of /t
• Moved straight-to-curve connection on /d and /p closer to extender
• Condensed width of /r
• Addressed left lean of /S, I think?
• Expanded width of /s by 5% and addressed left lean
• Condensed width of /u slightly to optically be same width as /n
• Lightened the /g and widened by 5%
• Increased size and weight of punctuation by 10%

Craig Eliason

I'd make sure those tapering terminals (top of /r/n/p, bottoms of /d/u etc.) feel more uniform, esp. in the light. And consider tapering the bottom right of /a too! /u still might be a touch wide. /S/s looking better. For /g's bottom loop, if you're going to depart from monoline strokes the top of that loop would usually be thicker rather than the bottom of it.

Jasper de Waard

Everything that Craig said, plus:

Spacing needs work. The i has too much space, see how the o is off-center in adhesion. The t has too much space, especially on the right.

Your caps seem quite dark compared to the lowercase.

The u is extra wide but n m h also look too wide to me, especially compared to d b p q (could also make those wider). 

Tofu Type Foundry

Thanks for all the feedback Craig and Jasper! I applied all the advice you’ve been offering. Adding a spur to /a is a game changer and I love how it looks with it. I made the /u more condensed but am wondering if it's slightly too squished now?

Quick summary of changes:

• Condensed the width of /n/m/h/u
• Corrected /g loop thickness to be more on top, less on bottom
• Standardized the spurs on /m/n/r/p/u/d and added one to /a
• Lightened Regular and Bold uppercase glyphs to fit in with lowercase more
• Improved spacing of /i /t /s and other general typeface spacing tweaks

Anyways, I appreciate all the assistance with seeing errors in Renwick’s design. Feels like it might be time to start focusing on spacing soon

Craig Eliason

Looking good. I'd lower your i-dot, there's too much space underneath it relative to the display-tight spacing everywhere.