I guess I’ll kick things off here. Warning - the following letter ’s’ has been known to eat children in their sleep.

- Lex

ouch. PLEASE, no horizontal or vertical stretching!

I actually tweaked each letter separately (although not properly I would assume based on your comment).

You can see that the Ultra Condensed one is a lot more square than the others, and the thickness of the thin bit on the bottom right doesn’t vary that much (as best as I could make it)

- Lex

After a bit more tweaking, I came up with this:

I still don’t like the ultra condensed one, but i think this is a lot better than my last attempt.

- Lex

hammmmmm, ok
this is my s ultralight

...so, someone’s suggested sketching several supplemental serpentine symbols (signifying sibilant sounds), subsequently stipulating “shun squooshed/stretched styles”; seems somewhat strange. Still, suppose should supply something...
(—Superfluously sesquipedalian? Sorry!)

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

Super selection, some surprises, s…oh hell I can’t do this :) super wide is looking drunk too
Tim

I only had three weights drawn of this, and they weren’t from last week. Crit?

One thing to keep in mind when going from condensed to wide is maintaining the appearance of weight. Notice in some of these examples how much bolder the condensed appears compared to the extended. It’s not too noticeable in the lightest weights, but the bolder you go, the more obvious it becomes. Weight is not just the relative thickness of the strokes, you must take into account the relationship of the strokes to the internal space.

Would I make the vertical sections of the stroke wider? I was afraid that would give the appearance of stretching... suggestions?
Mark, would you suggest a book on letter construction and typeface design? Something practical, with examples?

Would I make the vertical sections of the stroke wider? I was afraid that would give the appearance of stretching… suggestions?

No, you want to keep the relative thickness of the horizontal and vertical strokes consistent, though not necessarily mechanically consistent. Your eye is the final arbiter. Basically, it means that the wider you go, the bolder you go, to keep the same color impression. Again, it’s not a mechanical thing. You need to decide for yourself how much the stroke weight needs to change to achieve visual consistency. Take a look at type families with lots of widths and weights to see how others have done it.

Mark, would you suggest a book on letter construction and typeface design? Something practical, with examples?

These may be hard to find, but here are some I like:

Type Sign Symbol, by Adrian Frutiger
The Modification of Letterforms, by Stanley Hess
Lettering Design, by Michael Harvey

For the most part, these books are concerned with drawing letters by hand, but the main principles apply to digital type as well.

a bitmap “S” based on a cross-stich alphabet book :-). Showing at 200% as well....

Now, I know it is awefully quiet here right now, but is there another battle coming up?

My very first post, I trust you’ll all be gentle with me.

Here is my entry for a quick hand-drawn version.