Hi everyone,
This is my first post to TypeDrawers so let me introduce myself first. I have worked over 8 years as Art Director in advertising. My true passion however have always been typography and type design. First it was just a hobby but now I'm trying to make myself a profession by designing typefaces. I have studied graphic design but I haven't studied type design. So I'm selftought and that's why I thought it is maybe a good thing to ask some critique.
I made Riona Sans couple of years ago but now I decided to update it fully. Riona Sans has 16 weights, proportional lining figures, proportional old style figures and small caps.
Thanks,
Mika
Comments
How many masters are you working from, and what are their weights?
Great Job as usual.
At any rate, that Extra Black weight goes too far as designed--all the white space gets squeezed out (so, for example, small-cap E is almost just a black rectangle).
Cap /S/ is the letter that needs work the most IMO. It looks kind of sci-fi ish to me. /m/ is too wide also.
you stop cheating on the round ascender ht., face the issue of a huge x ht. and no clearance in the i, j and f, you look at some other sans italic round shapes, and you do a better job of spacing,
Otherwise you just make a lot of seriously troubled styles and work for yourself or your clients.
The cheating on the round ascender height is a good point, I have to check that. I have tweaked /S and /s both upright and italic (thanks to Graigs comment) and I think those are better now.
Interesting how Excoffon handled that in Antique Olive.
Actually a design solution, whereas letting the problem parts extend way up above the other ascenders is not.
Would you dare give your /f a low-rider crossbar?
I tweaked /S and /s letters and made /m narrower. I stopped cheating on the round ascender height. And I did gave /f a low-rider crossbar (not so much as in Antique olive but still). I think that looks good and adds a little bit personality to this typeface.
Perhaps tittles that overshoot ascender height are not such a bad thing. After all, that is an area where accents (upper case) do occur. See Proxima Nova, for instance.