Just to kick it off:

Yeeeehaw:

I thought we might be talking about actual drawing by hand but I guess not. Once I get moved into my apartment today I’ll hop on this exercise. Nice woodtype-esque example you’ve got there, with a perfect ’Yeehaw’ intro to boot!

Kris: are there other weights of Karv in the works?

Kris, those terminals are so elegant; great attention to detail.

Randy, I love how your terminals start as balls and then as weight is added they just can’t be ballsy enough without turning into slabs!

I’m afraid mine was kind of a hip-shot. I wanted to try an S that was really narrow, and get a huge dynamic range out of it. I bet it looks like something already out there:

Slabb-tastic Randy! Yeehaww indeed. As for Karv, well, I don’t know. I am still trying to figure out what would be better, more weights or a huge alternate glyph set. The s’s above were based on Zinc, which I think is far more promising!

Here is another attempt, I’m trying to see how black I can go…

more weights or a huge alternate glyph set.

why not both? >^P

okay here’s a stab. critiques welcome:

here’s something slabby…

A sssskeleton of ssssomething I have been thinking about... I used an Illustrator brush(if it isn’t obvious) to make it more expressive. Pardon the amateur attempt.

»thought we might be talking about actual drawing by hand«

This was just too tempting; thanks Mr Bailey. Can’t sacrifice much time (not even at 3.00 am), so all is drawn out of the loose hand (with some few guides predrawn) and I messed up the fill of the blackblack s ;-) Also, notice how the “regular” s is taller than the rest, while they should get subsequentlyever so slightly taller. oh well.

k

Kris: Second: I love how the contrast runs in the light! Maybe changing the spines’ angles for the bolder weights would make them even better.

Paul: I would almost expect the bolder weights’ terminals to bend slightly inside à la Bureau Grotesque. Nice! I think the tops could all be a tad bit smaller than the bottoms. Also, in the bolder weights, try putting more mass in the spine, less in the top and bottom.

Lunyboy: That Illustrator brush can teach you a lot about how letters are constructed, don’t dismiss it as amateurish.

Just my 6 ¢
k

oh and

but that already existed
;-)

k

Yet another way to bend the rules...

Hey, my name’s Jeff, this is my first time ever doing something like this, let me know what you think.

Jeff, the unorthodox weighting of the main curve of the first two weights give the Ss a lot of character. I wish it carried over to the two bolder weights, by maybe changing the angle a bit. Those are some distinctive serifs there.

I changed the bold and black as per Jong’s observation, I think they fit together much better now. Thanks for the feedback.

Jeff

wow yeah jeff like those serifs! ::downloads to steal idea later::

koleslaw: I like your idea but it seems more of an exercise in color rather than weight.

nick: Your slabby serif has nice form but the regular and bold weights seem too similar, suggesting maybe you put the regular on a bit of a diet.

thanks David. off to the fat farm…

———

Here’s another where I tried to make the width of the light equal the counter of the ultrablack. It’s straight interpolation via fontlab. Need to tweek the ends to make the middle look better. Its interesting how it goes from being a workable text font, and in the last step goes to bubble letter display. I wonder if other letters could be interpolated from light to bubble like this. Probably not.

i thinned out the regular and tried to give the black weight a little more personality…

———

Nice, Randy. That’s a really good example of how different members of a ’family’ can have very different personalities. It’s like the skinny uptight aunt on your mother’s side sitting next to the fat drunk uncle on your father’s side.

»thought we might be talking about actual drawing by hand«

Nowhere does it say letterforms must be created digitally. :)

Here’s my attempt #2

OK, the ’proper’ curvy one is there to legitimize the posting of an otherwise “sissy, rectilinear” one: I was just grabbed by the sudden idea of “fractal emboldening”! I hope you’ll all excuse the simplistic square “light” version on those grounds!!!

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Ever since I chose to block pop-ups, my toaster’s stopped working.

Beeyootiful! I especially like Koleslaw’s, Randy’s and Dave’s.

I tried out another letter so see if the monoline -> bubble in a single interpolation was a one-trick pony. It’s not exactly right, but it’s not terrible either. The middle was a first attempt. The bottom is after tweeking the ultra master. The mid-weights are still not right and I prefer the ultra version in the middle, but it’s a decent start.

If I was going to turn this into a font, I’d probably make the masters the light and black. Then do the doublestuff version on it’s own. Too much of a stretch to use the same nodes as the light. Fun to push the limit though.

Randy, this is great. I love how you rationalized the weight changes. almost like going from a text to a display face as it gets heavier.

Hi all! May be it’s too ordinary but I have done this.

Randy, which two weights did you interpolate/extrapolate between?

drawn by hand, scanned by an imbecile.
Tim

None of you are creating the image at 600x400 px ... :^/ (Not complaining, just noticing.)

Light to Ultra Black.
One end to the other.

I am loving Randy’s S also! Nice work.

i like the S, but i’m not so sure about that A…
; )

sorry about the rectilinear forms, but the ultra black version was never considered “sissy” back in grade school!

> back in grade school
hell yeah! i remember drawing those!