A text face inspired by Century

Grant Bowers

I've designed a typeface inspired by the Century family and would really appreciate some outside feedback. While I'm fairly happy with it overall, there's something that feels off in the design, but I can't quite pinpoint or fix the issue. I've been designing typefaces as a hobby for about two years, so I'm still very much learning.

This typeface is intended for use at sizes under 18pt. I used HT Letterspacer for automatic spacing, but I'm primarily looking for critique on the letterforms themselves. That said, any advice on spacing would also be very helpful. I've attached an image with the letterforms as well as a proof with the font shown at 18pt, 12pt, 9pt, and 6pt for reference. Thank you for any help.

John Butler

hmnu feel narrow compared to cdegopq, to start with.

Thomas Phinney

Just in general, the lowercase feels a lot more condensed than the caps.

Lowercase g is WAY wider than other lowercase, and has a strange forward lean.

f crossbar is oddly wide.

John Savard

Century Expanded was somewhat condensed; in my opinion, that's a flaw that limits the usefulness of an otherwise beautiful typeface, and so I think that's one characteristic you shouldn't have tried to preserve.

In your text sample, the lowercase m seems to be excessively condensed; the typeface almost resembles a monospace version of Century because of that.

Mikhail Vasilev

Century, particularly Old style, is one my favourite fonts of all time. And it is good that you did not make yet another Schoolbook from it. So, in general I like it.

In general, lowercase letter spacing feels a bit too loose.
Few things I'd personally change further:

- n, m, u:  make them slightly less condensed (ca. by 110%)

- f: put the crossbar lower

- c: the ball terminal hangs too low

- w: I'd put it lower for better visual vertical balance

Craig Eliason

Make sure your rounds hit a wider thickness at their thickest than the thickness of your straight stems. And more generally look for optical consistency in your thicks, some of the diagonals are too heavy.

John Savard

Mikhail Vasilev said:

And it is good that you did not make yet another Schoolbook from it.

It might seem, from my preceding post, that I disagree. But that is not quite true.

While I do think that the proportions of Century Schoolbook are an improvement over those of Century Expanded, it has other characteristics that are not improvements: it is bolder, and the serifs, I believe, are changed to move the typeface in the direction of a Clarendon. Those things make Century Schoolbook less appropriate as a general text typeface than Century Expanded.

So I would want you to make another Century Wide out of it, not another Century Schoolbook.

Nick Cooke

The ascenders aren’t high enough. Make them higher than the cap height then the top of the f won’t be so cramped. There are too many inconveniences to mention but the R in particular needs a lot of work.