A couple of months ago, I watched an old western movie and found myself drawn to the typeface used for one of the newspaper headlines. I was familiar with French Clarendons, but this one struck me as unusual. I tried to find out what the font was called, but couldn't find an exact match, so I decided to try to create my own version.
Given the original headline only had a few characters, many of mine are 'best guesses'. I have already had some great advice from someone who specialises in reverse contrast fonts, so I thought it was a good time to open this up for wider comment.
A couple of things:
- Though I've tinkered with the widths of the UC relative to the lc, I've broadly retained their relative weights.
- UC diacritics look a bit puny; I'll add some weight at a later date.
- I've been wrestling with side bearings for weeks. I'm more comfortable with them now than at any point in the past, but still feel unsure. Any thoughts here would be very welcome.
- Notwithstanding the last comment, my main focus here is form. Do any of the characters strike you as plain 'wrong'? I'm thinking particularly about the /eszett (both UC and lc), /Thorn and /eth (maybe /g as well).
Thanks in advance,
Steve
Comments
/r/ looks unbalanced; you may want to extend its baseline serif rightward. Middle arm of /F/ could be a little longer.
I always think /A/s without serifs at their apex look bald in this style.
I've tweaked the /e, /r and /f along the lines suggested.
I agree about the /A (same for the /V, /v, /W & /w), but the original was bald, so I think I'll keep it as the default. I already have seriffed alts.
Did anything strike you as particularly jarring about the spacing?
Spacing has caused me no end of problems. I initially tried to make it tighter, but the tail of the /a disrupted the flow. Of course, I could shrink the tail, but it's a key characteristic of the original and I would rather retain it with all its attendant problems than lose it, hence the looser spacing.
Just for reference, the original headline used in the movie was set a fair bit looser than I have it!
ETA: I know my changing the /g appears at odds with what I said about retaining the characteristics of the original but, though I did create a like-for-like version, I didn't like it.
Do you think this is a critical flaw?
Better?
BTW if your wordspace glyph is what was separating the words in your specimen, you need to narrow it quite a bit.
Is there too much difference in height between the cap serifs and lowercase serifs?
Is /w/ too wide?
Tail of /y/ feels out of character.
Check the image in my earlier post showing the 'Shinbone Star'. If anything, I've probably made the cap serifs relatively lighter.
I had already added some weight to upper bowl of the /g. You think it needs more?
If /y/‘s tail stays maybe give something more to /j/‘s. (And /f/‘s hook?)
The /f and /j have been problematic from the start. I initially had more substantial hooks, but they caused all sorts of problems with spacing (maybe because of the weight distribution?). I sent an early version to a designer who specialises in reverse contrast faces and his advice was to truncate the /f and /j terminals.
I do think they look a little odd, but I don't dislike them, so my inclination is to leave them be.
I really appreciate all your feedback, Craig.
Better?
I've never tried anything like this before, so would really welcome any thoughts.
However, when MyFonts approved the font and asked for a final set of files, I inadvertently included my draft Cyrillic glyphs in the final file, which prompted MyFonts to ask if I would complete the character set.
So I have. The attached PDF includes text blocks set in caps, sentence case and lower case. There are a number of rules I've had to follow to keep their design consistent with the Latin script; and to also allow them to have split serifs and pegs added for inclusion in an Ornamented version I'm working on separately.
I'd really welcome any feedback on the current draft, since my knowledge of the Cyrillic script is very limited.
Thanks in advance.
** NOTE ** PDF updated.
Any suggestions?
Do you think anything else needs serious attention?
I think I'm pretty happy with what I have at this point so, unless you (or anyone else) see anything that really doesn't work, I'll move forward with what I have.
Really appreciate your feedback, thanks!
I would welcome any feedback anyone may have the time to offer some, particularly if you see anything that's plain wrong.
Does it work better?
Maybe worth trying removing the serifs at the top of the center stroke of Psi.
Baseline serif of eta feels strange.