The recent resurgence of the old discussion whether a «humanist geometric sans» was an oxymoron or not prompted me to try out something else that's been itching in the back of my head: A humanist grotesque.
Now, I generally vastly prefer humanist sans over grotesques, but every now and then a super-clean neo-grotesque catches my eye, and I'm starting to warm up to their aesthetic.
So here's my attempt at crossing the genres while trying to preserve what I like about either of them. I've probably gone overboard with it, but it's always easier to rein something back than to make it more interesting retroactively...
What currently stands out to me is the stylistic disparity between the drop-shaped counters and the upright /c/ and /s/ (an presumably /e/, though I notice that much less). The /c/ already looks a lot less out of place after I've opened the aperture from the original drawing; perhaps there's more to be done in that direction.
In any case, I'd offer alternates for a pure neo-grotesque experience as well:
I'd probably still use the humanist forms for the Italics, though.
Opinions?
Comments
Part of the problem is the width of /c/e/: they’re too wide relative to /o/, which is a better fit proportionally with the other letters.
The /a/b/d/g/p/q/ all have a strong LR directional stress, while /c/e/s/—and to /o/—all have a static, vertical stress. I would experiment with the outer extrema and stroke modulation in these letters to compensate and adapt to the directional stress of the other letters.
Idiomatically, I don’t think you have made a humanist grotesque: I think you’ve made a humanist type with a handful of grotesque letters that don’t fit. When you show the proposed alternates for ‘a pure neo-grotesque experience’, what I see is the /h/m/n/u/ now jumping out as being non-grotesque.