TYPE BATTLE: Week 15 (26 June)

Design

26 Jun 2006 — 4:16pm

TYPE BATTLE: Week 15 (26 June)

Here's your chance to stretch your type muscles on a weekly basis. Each game kicks off on Monday with a new challenge, and closes at midnight PST on Friday. Anyone may submit a design response to the challenge. You may enter as often as you wish. Post anytime. Critiques and comments are welcome throughout the game, from participants and spectators alike. Smack talk is encouraged.

Winner take all, no holds barred. May the best designer win.

Link directly to this thread: http://www.typophile.com/battle15

Requirements:

- Size: 600 width x 400 height. 72 dpi
- Color: Black and white only
- Format: Please save your graphics as PNG
- Only respond with the characters posted in the challenge.

// THIS WEEK'S CHALLENGE:
// Create an italic lower case for a serif typeface. The characters should have high stroke contrast and be tuned for display at 72pt. The strokes should be based on a pointed nib pen. For bonus points: add a swash ff ligature.

dave bailey
26 Jun 2006 — 8:58pm

For the youngins like me in the group, can we see examples of lettering with broad nib pens? I'd like to try at least a few characters if I could get headed in the right direction. When you say 72pt, is that measured by the cap height? ie x height would then be ~36-40 pt? (I figured I would design it at that size)

david h
26 Jun 2006 — 11:48pm

> For the youngins like me in the group, can we see examples of lettering with broad nib pens?

1. Hermann Zapf - you know?

2. http://www.waterslettering.com/

3. http://www.linotype.com/31-12683/fillingthepen.html

Tim Ahrens
27 Jun 2006 — 1:49am

Hi David,
before you start filling your pen make sure it's not a broad nib pen but a pointed pen, as it says above.

Pointed pens produce something similar to this, although these are extreme examples. You could also have a look at Bodoni italic for an example of the style that is asked for.

Christian Robertson
27 Jun 2006 — 8:25pm

Zara Evens
29 Jun 2006 — 12:59pm

Are y'all just going to let Christian win??

Sebastian Nagel
30 Jun 2006 — 1:56am

i fear this task is a bit oversized...
Call it blasphemy, but my preference at the moment is sitting at the lake. Drawing five @-alternates is okay – designing a pointed nip pen italic, that's too much at the moment.

Sebastian Nagel
30 Jun 2006 — 1:59am

on topic: I love the "g" in Christians font: it's like a sniffing dog. And the ff-lig... ffortissimo pianissimo ;-)

Raina
30 Jun 2006 — 5:03pm

Here's my first post on typophile:

dave gath
1 Jul 2006 — 7:42am

Nice work you 2 lone battlers. Great "first post" Raina.

j_polo9
2 Jul 2006 — 5:21am

very nice! Is there anyway we can have like the next three battles listed in advance so people can start on them early if they wish to compete? And a showcase for past battles? (lemme know if i can help out in anyway).

dtw
4 Jul 2006 — 6:46am

Jesse: LOL! You'll be lucky! Besides, I suspect they don't think ’em up that far in advance.

Zara: Yup. I agree with Sebastian; a challenge like this is too much for me in this weather (even my mouse is sluggish; don't feel like adding heat to the house by turning the PC on when I get home of an evening!)

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

outlook
4 Jul 2006 — 6:41pm

Quick question from a Typophile.com newbie:

When entering these battles does one create his work into a font program like Fontlab or are the images posted simply mock-up type settings produced in a Illustrator (or similar)?

I would love to enter some ideas in future battles but have yet to stepped up to full on Fontlab skills.

Sorry if this information is posted elswere. In love with this site.

Sebastian Nagel
5 Jul 2006 — 1:40am

I would say it doesn't matter how you do it. What counts is how the final rasterized png-file looks like, rather than how it was created.

I prefer fontlab from scratch for this task, because I like the vector-tools better than the ones of Illustrator for font-works.

Zara Evens
6 Jul 2006 — 10:25am

Outlook: How you produce the the designs is up to you, unless the rules of a particular battle suggest you do otherwise. As Sebastian mentioned, what is important is that you upload the design as a PNG.

I'd guess most people are working in Illustrator (or an equivalent), or maybe a combination of AI and Fontlab (that is, if you are like Christian, master battler, and building functional fonts every time). Drawing entirely by hand and using a scanner is also an acceptable method.

outlook
6 Jul 2006 — 11:25am

Great, thanks for the information, Just wanted to clear that up before I entered. Hopefully I will post something in the next battle.

Cheers.

albrey
7 Jul 2006 — 8:43pm