"Dawson Grotesque" Please critique

Exactly what Thomas said. It would be better for your project if you can concentrate on the main design, on a small set of letters to make it work. After that, it's fine to expand the character set and think about the other styles. Also, I'd not spend energy on the idea of releasing it at this juncture to be honest. But who am I to say.

I am attaching an image that illustrate our point. There is so much to be fixed in the core design that it is pointless to have such a large glyph set. Highlighted in yellow the overlapped comments from Thomas.



/H: Looks tight if you think of the generous proportions of the lowercase letters.
 /a: I quite like it. The left shoulder of the bowl could be refined to increase tension (pull up). Tail could be heavier.
/n: Check the relationship of the connections. It's very thin here whereas heavier in /a. I agree with Thomas, that it could be wider.
/d: Again, the connections seem to be off.
/g: I would think about closing the bottom tail. It draws too much attention. You could play with this feature in the more display cuts. Ear looks weak and I'd refine the curve inside the hook to make it monolinear.
/l: Cut on the top seems out of context. Inside curve of tail looks mechanical when compared to letter /a tail.
/o: Agree with Thomas here, looks squarish and comparing to /e you have two different routes.
/v: look very wide and the diagonals are heavy.
/e: very geometric, I'd harmonise it with /o and stick to one route. Mid bar does not look parallel.
/s: Bottom stroke is quite heavy compared to the top one. counter in the top could be refined.
Figures: The cuts don't fit to this design. And top counter of number 8 is very small, I'd balance the two counters better and also think of changing it for a more grotesque design. Spine of /two and diagonal stroke of /four don't look parallel.

I'm not even looking at the other letters. Looking at the small characters it's possible to notice that there is a lot to be fixed ir regard to proportions, shapes, etc.

Good luck, don't rush and enjoy the experience.
R

What Thierry said.

Or to go another way, you could take 1/4 of the letterforms from this and tweak them and build a new character set around them. Any of several quarters actually, as the typefaces is pushing in several different and arguably contradictory directions.

Those are two most excellent pieces of advice. Both of them, but especially the second one (in this context).

Simon Dunford said:

As Thierry stated — I defiantly was trying to step away from traditional letterform similarities and make unique attributes

As someone who makes type on its own too, I would say: don't worry particularly about putting distinctive features – for an amateur this often means putting things that are out of whack.
The real challenge is to have an harmonious set of letters, not to make it different – that's quite counter-intuitive, I know the first thing people ask when you say you're making type is "how is it different from other fonts?".
But the process of crafting typeface will yield something distinctive. And with fonts, the devil is in the details; the texture of the whole and paragraph-level variables (like width, spacing) are much more significant than construction details of a single letter.

Just to clarify: I’m not saying release or finish any of the boring stuff. But learning what definitely works will help you learn how to bend those things. You can reach that knowledge in a myriad of ways, but some are definitely harder than others.

I’m following the "follow the heart" path myself, and it’s definitely resulting in a lot of lost time just because I never wanted to draw the boring stuff.

Top notch designers that can't give good advice. Mediocre designers that can give insightful and inspiring advice. Both situations exist.

I believe that designing a boring typeface as a starting point is also valid, as valid as a young painter who start learning from still life compositions or copying the masters. Personal style and innovation will show up naturally. My questions is, what is the point of trying to find a style and express yourself if you do not master the tools you need to progress? 

@Hrant H. Papazian This debate can take a life time and we won't find an understanding... Boring and exciting are sides of the same coin. Everyone should feel free to pick one and be happy!

Disregarding your educational background, the "practice leads to perfection" thingy is always applicable. The old fellows spent their entire lifes doing type and it is for sure they developed a personal style. Nowadays we are in a rush to achieve something and forget about the path itself. I strongly believe that personal style is a subproduct of well established craftsmanship. 

Personally I don't get why people keep making sans-serifs, it is an already overpopulated field, and then there's Helvetica and the other major players. I'm not saying it's wrong, just that I don't get it.