Feedbacks on a allcaps titling font ?

jacques monteyrol

Hello !

This is my first post here, 

I would like to have some feedback on a font that I am currently developing, it is one of my calligraphy that I compressed and then smoothed on Illustrator, I then digitized the result in order to create a titling font, what do you think?

Thank you !

Adam Ladd

Hello. It's an intriguing style. You mentioned "compressing" it. Upon first glance, I wonder if it feels too artificially compressed and pinched still in spots...

i.e. perhaps it needs a bit more structure/shape and just a little less narrowness at the peaks of curved glyphs. The /G and bottom contours of /U in particular. (Tricky balance with trying to maintain the contrast and tall look)

jacques monteyrol

Hello Adam, 
Thank you for your feedbacks it’s gonna help me!
I have a lot of harmonisation to do 
I understand that it’s kind of a weird vibe of course !

Thomas Phinney

It looks really obviously distorted algorithmically.

When you draw something, and then squish it asymmetrically, that distorts the stroke weights. I can actually measure the distortion, even. If the original were drawn with a 45° pen nib angle, you compressed it horizontally by 5/8 (more if it was at 30°, or some other angle).

The same effect can be made by making a font of the nice original and then algorithmically squashing it, in a matter of a second. There is really nothing to be gained by making it squashed in the first place.

That isn’t to say you couldn’t fix it! You totally could! You could manually adjust the horizontal (and to some extent the diagonal) stroke thicknesses, and get back to something that looks like actually designed condensed letterforms. You could even just algorithmically add weight in the X direction in a font editing app, and that would get at least partway to fixing things.

(I apologize if I sound dismissive of it, as is. This initial iteration reminds me of “bad” typography of the 90s, when scalable fonts became accessible to casual users for the first time.)

jacques monteyrol

Hello Thomas

Thank you so much for your feedbacks !

technically and with a typographic eye, I think you are right and I'm gonna compense the effect of the “bad distorsion” you mentioned, I'm gonna start from your point of view for sure!

 

but the “90’s bad typography” vibe is almost the thing I'm searching for hahaha, I know that it’s not really conventional (for now it's look like a graphic-designer font) (I also like to do classic projects that are made by logical choices or by calligraphic constraint for sure)
I also know that the version here is “too much” and kind of weird, I see that I still have a lot of work to do !

thank you for taking the time to give me tips, it’s really help me

All this enlightens me on how to proceed for the future !
I don't know if I can publish the evolution here or not ?

(sorry for my approximative english haha
Thank you!

Thomas Phinney

Of course you can show next versions here! I for one would be interested, and I am sure many others would be as well.

I am glad you found that useful and not just cranky on my part.  

Adam Ladd

I'd be interested to see as well after more balance and refinement Thomas speaks of.

It's an intriguing look, and it might be helpful to see the original calligraphy source of yours before you compressed/tweaked it (if you'd like to share, of course don't have to). Could inform more of what you're going for and what got distorted.

Craig Eliason

To recover the more credible calligraphic feel, one option might be to print this out and use its proportions in a new piece of calligraphy that you again digitize.