Didot sans

Ofir Shavit
Ofir Shavit Posts: 397
in Type Design Critiques
I'm working on this Didot-sans these days, and not quite satisfied yet.
Among the things I'm having trouble with are the /m/x/y, also not sure about the /c/e
Would appreciate your opinion.

Comments

  • George Thomas
    George Thomas Posts: 645
    Have you considered doing a poll?
  • Ofir Shavit
    Ofir Shavit Posts: 397
    edited February 2015
    Not for a minute. Are you having fun with me George? : P
  • George Thomas
    George Thomas Posts: 645
    Absolutely.  :)
  • Ofir Shavit
    Ofir Shavit Posts: 397
    Good. No how's that Didot-sans?! And is is a crime against typography?
  • Philip Jackson
    Philip Jackson Posts: 38
    The /S and /s are imbalanced and nearly made me have my breakfast come out the wrong end. The /a is single-story; not very faithful [ahem] at all. The /b /d /g /h left of /m /n /p /q /u need sharper joins. Check the bottom on /y, as there's a kink, as well an the bottom of /G. (?) Fix the top of /K and top arm of /k, there's two angles there. Kinks are everywhere in the /U. The bowl of /P and /R look too low, too square, and a little too wide to me. The /Q's left side of the tail is too thin, and near the right terminal of that tail, on the right side there's a kink. I would call it a semi-serif for the sake of that /r, it's killing me. I'm too lazy to check more.
  • Ofir Shavit
    Ofir Shavit Posts: 397
    Thanks Philip!
    /S/s Imbalanced in what sense? 
    The kinks and angles will be fixed a bit later,
    I'll consider again the joins angle and /P/R bowls, it's styling attempt.
    The /r is also full of doubts, even though I'm kinda fond of it. If it stands out too hard it should be treated in another way.
  • Deleted Account
    Deleted Account Posts: 739
    It is a cat.
  • Ofir Shavit
    Ofir Shavit Posts: 397
    Cat-astrophe? 
  • Ofir Shavit
    Ofir Shavit Posts: 397
    I think there's some progress here now. I like the new /r, but it doesn't seem to suit the /s's (and others) curves type.

    Thanks to @PabloImpallari for the great testing page i'm using!

    Btw, How should the letters grid (attached) should be examined? 
  • Christian Thalmann
    Christian Thalmann Posts: 1,983
    edited February 2015
    Honestly, I don't see much family likeness with Didot. Sure, there's the high vertical contrast, but otherwise the construction and style of the letters is quite different. Most notably, the shoulders (e.g. /n) and bowls (e.g. /p) are much flatter in your design than in Didot, letter shapes that look optically semi-circular in Didot (e.g. /D) are squarish instead, the heavy bottoms of /c/e/C/U break the contrast harmony, and the corner connections in /M/N/K/V/W look mechanical. In all cases, I think staying truer to the Didot design would improve your typeface.

    Here's an example where someone tried the same thing with Bodoni:

    https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/greyscale-type/bodoni-sans/

    It strikes me as reasonably well-made, although the /S/s are absurdly tilted.

  • Philip Jackson
    Philip Jackson Posts: 38
    Is it made with FontArk? ...I guess so.
  • Ofir Shavit
    Ofir Shavit Posts: 397
    edited February 2015
    Te cat never expected to get away with it! (Crime Against Typography)


    That's true Christian, it really has nothing to do with Didot, nor with Bodoni (Now we're stuck with the topic name :S). I don't like much the pointy corners of these styles, but I have to do something about that /y. I'm going to check out how it'll look like if i'll squarish the style even more.

    Yes Fontark Philip.  


  • Ofir Shavit
    Ofir Shavit Posts: 397
    edited February 2015
    8 styles test. I'm also experimenting with a 4 weights of serif version for this font.

    Why does the /Z/z's diagonal appear much darker (specially in the thin styles)?
    Is it a screen issue?

    Disclosure - This font is made as part of Fontark's QA process and will be released as a free font family when done. 



  • Ofir Shavit
    Ofir Shavit Posts: 397
    edited February 2015
    .

  • Christian Thalmann
    Christian Thalmann Posts: 1,983
    edited February 2015
    The /G strikes me as out of character compared to /C. Maybe remove the flare at the top end and bring the chin further down towards the baseline?

    Maybe /n/m/h/u would profit from moving the apex of their arch farther away from the straight stem and thus making the rounded stem a bit straighter?
  • Ofir Shavit
    Ofir Shavit Posts: 397
    Thanks Christian. Good advises... this will surely improve the /n/m/h/u. I'll test the G too. There are some more modifications I made while practicing the serif version, I'll show it soon.
  • Ofir Shavit
    Ofir Shavit Posts: 397
    edited February 2015
    Here's the serif version. far from being perfect, and I'm not sure about the spacing, /t/a and the mixture of the two kinds of serifs (serif and slab).


  • Craig Eliason
    Craig Eliason Posts: 1,436
    edited February 2015
    I think a review of Cyrus Highsmith's Inside Paragraphs would be helpful to you.
  • Ofir Shavit
    Ofir Shavit Posts: 397
    Thanks Craig, ordered.  10 days to it's arrive.
    (btw... you need to fix the link)

    I've lowered the /G chin down, but not satisfied of it yet.
    Had to agree that the /P/R bowls  were much too low so raised them.
    Retouched the /a spur, and /S/s.


  • Philip Jackson
    Philip Jackson Posts: 38
    Maybe focus on the sans first, that way you can know what works on the serif right away.
  • Ofir Shavit
    Ofir Shavit Posts: 397
    While working on the sans It felt like things float and I lose focus, working on the serif gave me more relation points.

    Here's a slab version...

    Feeling ready to sans it down again.


  • Ofir Shavit
    Ofir Shavit Posts: 397
    edited March 2015
    After stripping off the serifs at 32px.

    The space width was reduced to the /I width, and the line-height increased.
    32


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