Hey all,
I'm an industrial designer turned graphic designer, now experimenting with type design. 🙃
This a first attempt at a thick, display sans serif (hopefully with some character). So far it's only uppercase, figures, and punctuation which has been roughly spaced but not kerned.
Overall, I'm interested to know if this direction is worth continuing to work on or if I should call it a learning exercise and try something else. Of course, any and all feedback on curve quality, proportions, and general design are appreciated!
Thanks!
(image below and PDF attached)
Comments
You've established a pinch on 569... how narrow the stroke is pinched at the intersections. But then on the G, there's a different technique.
Considering how broad and tough the letters look, the W feels a bit wimpy. Maybe give it a slightly more squarish shape. V feels lighter than the A.
For fat punctuation like mathematical symbols and brackets, I like to first determine a math stroke. In this case, I'd go with the thickness of the fraction slash...the slash on your %. Use that as a guide for stroke thickness on plus, minus etc. and brackets. As far as lining brackets; they often seem like a fine idea until you see them next to accented letters. Do some test accents and that can help you determine your bracket dimensions.
Compare the 6 and 9 to the 8. See how the top of the eight is smaller than the bottom? Apply some of that thinking to your 6 and 9.
Middle arm of /E could be longer (or maybe the other two shorter).
Ampersand seems like a workable form, but looks a little topheavy to me.
I made some of the revisions you all suggested and attached an updated PDF below.
Changes made:
- Reduced overshoot
- Narrowed the 2 and 5
- Opened up the S
- Narrowed the J
- Reshaped the counters on the G and C
- Lengthened the crossbar of the E
- Tried to balance the ampersand
Let me know if that's headed in the right direction@Craig Eliason any better? Thanks for bearing with me on the basics.
The foot(?) – the part that goes vertically down from the horizontal bar – is not aligned with the right hand side, but its slant suggests it should. Either make it clear that it's going to not happen (and at that point you probably want a bit of that bar sticking out to the left as well), or see what it's like if you align it with the rightmost point. It is more traditional, I know, but I have a hard time seeing it other than a /C with some embellishment.
Did I mention I like the overall look? I do! I'd like to see a sample text with a mix of uppercase and digits.
If I had this as a font I would probably experiment with tracking – super-tight or super-loose – and see what happens.
But get input from others too.
This has the advantage, in a bold typeface, of having less "competition": you have one thick spot instead of two. So the thins will not need to be as extreme as the single thin you currently have.
Clearly I've got a lot to keep refining (and a new G to design), but in the meantime here's an attempt at a more balanced S:
Is it still too high-contrast compared to the rest?
Am I back to the original problem of it being too closed?
A spurless rounded G and an "all-spur" version as a stylistic alternate.
Again, thanks for all the comments—I've learned a ton and hopefully the typeface is better for it too.
(As it is, there is a discontinuity in curvature from the left side which is looser, to the right which is tighter.)