I'm working on an ultra-black master of a serif with diagonal stress (translation, broad nib...), and I'm struggling with the modulation and proportions of some capital letters. I'd like to look at references. Any suggestions? Thanks!
Almost all high contrast types with diagonal stress in the lower case chicken out of following through in the caps, by making the stress orthogonal.
The treatment of C is critical. Do you put a serif on the bottom terminal? And if not, do you thicken up the bottom curve, and if so, how much of a diagonal stroke do you suggest? Compare these Cs in a “Caslon” heavyweight.
Yeah, I've figured out the treatment of C is indeed critical! This is how my C & c currently look:
At first I had tried a similar stress angle & mass distribution for C as in c, but that made C sticking out too much, so I toned it down, going for something between c and vertical stress.
Great suggestions, thank you so much! Swear & Boogy Brut are particularly useful to me. For instance, both of them compromise on a too large inner white space in U, so that U doesn't become too narrow, which is the same compromise I've chosen to make, so that's reassuring.
I think you have understood a good principle: that the arrangement of where weight falls is more important to suggesting oblique stress than the rotation of the counter.
So far, it seems to me that only Boogy Brut - and to a much lesser extent, Mirta - are really examples of what the original poster seems to have been looking for, as I understand it. This may be because a typeface of this kind is difficult to design, and hence is quite uncommon.
If one goes back to the 1900 ATF desk book, one can find a few sort-of examples, like De Vinne, or this
which is named Rimpled, but again, is not a particularly good example either. But certainly there should be some examples to find in the nineteenth century.
@John Savard, Rimpled is an interesting example. I guess such a diagonally-stressed capital C has fell out of fashion. That's kind of counter-intuitive to me, as I would have expected capital- and lowercase forms to converge to a similar structure, with time, while Rimpled suggests that C/c might have gone in the opposite direction.
Comments
https://typographica.org/typeface-reviews/bely/
The treatment of C is critical.
Do you put a serif on the bottom terminal?
And if not, do you thicken up the bottom curve, and if so, how much of a diagonal stroke do you suggest?
Compare these Cs in a “Caslon” heavyweight.
Is this on track Ori?
Yeah, I've figured out the treatment of C is indeed critical!
This is how my C & c currently look:
At first I had tried a similar stress angle & mass distribution for C as in c, but that made C sticking out too much, so I toned it down, going for something between c and vertical stress.
@Matthijs Herzberg
Great suggestions, thank you so much! Swear & Boogy Brut are particularly useful to me. For instance, both of them compromise on a too large inner white space in U, so that U doesn't become too narrow, which is the same compromise I've chosen to make, so that's reassuring.
https://typedrawers.com/discussion/3974/looking-for-richmond-old-style-bold-compressed
Here's the (amazing) former:
Thanks to everyone for your suggestions!