Hello David

I think it looks extremely nice. And you got the 'ø' perfectly right in the true spirit of danish designers such as Thorvald Bindesbøll, Knud V. Engelhardt & Gunnar Biilmann Petersen. (You need an Æ though)
A suggestion would be for you to draw some nice uncommon ligatures such as 'AV', 'MV', 'ME', 'ND' and so on. That would really hit the spot when designing titles or posters. And it would fit the tradition well.

Concerning the 'm', have you considered bringing in the right leg a little bit. Not much... just a little so that optically the whitespace within the 'm' looks even? This is a thing a danish typeface designer (Poul Søgren)once told me look out for when drawing the lowercase 'm'. :)
Other than that, I think the 'm' looks fine.

By the way did you know that Codan is a danish ensurance company. (You probably did)

Good luck

Magnus

Nice. I didn't know about Kodaň being the czech name for Copenhagen.

Yes, ligatures as those in Carlsberg are exactly what I was thinking about. That logo btw was designed by Thorvald Bindesbøll a long time ago. :)

MG

Hello,
be nitpicky. It's the only way.

— you are right. I was trying not to see this. But it is not too wide, I think. It needs only smaller upper part.
— I know what you mean, but I think It is ok.
— I don't know. :)
— w, hm. I think It is all right. It is different, but (I hope) all right.
— a, s, hey you are right, but it's only a little :)

I wasn't thinking very much about big family, but maybe you'll change my mind.
I'll make some changes at the end of this week, I'll post it.

Hi, David

I think it looks nice. You can always work on the kerning when you have all the characters ready.

Recently I have been looking through some danish typedesign. (Yes, it actually seems that there is a distinct danish way of drawing letterforms.) And I still think you have a lot of Knud V Engelhardt's and Gunnar Biilmann Petersen's trademarks in your typeface. The way the A is drawn with the big flat top and the way the Ø is drawn as well. And that goes for most of your letters but the C and G doesn't seem to follow the tradition. The terminals should end vertically and not horizontally like now. And the G would not have the horizontal crossbar as it does now but only the vertical. I hope this weird babling makes any sense to you. Of course my words are just guidelines to the way of drawing like the classic danish typedesigners and you should not necessary listen to me but just go ahead and do it your own way.

I think the lowercase s is too thin on the middle where it should probably be the thickest. But it is tilting nicely now as is the lc a.

The first one of your two lowercase y's is the best in my opinion. :)

I think it is looking nice.

--

Here's a link to a pdf about ligatures (it's in Danish). And I think you can find--on the first page--an example of the kind of G I was trying to sketch out for you. (In the lower right corner are some logotypes by knud v engelhardt and gunnar biilmann pertersen)

www.grafisk-litteratur.dk/ download/btm/10%20Ligatur/btm10b.pdf

Regards

Magnus

Ach!

I would like to make a detailed overview of the Codan typeface development. Do you think it is a good idea?

Just saw this. Your link doesn't work for me, so I only see the .png

Wow! This manages to look old fashioned and fresh at the same time. Congratulations.

Even though the wide joins of the AMN are part of the look, I think some might benefit from being made just slightly narrower. The N particularly, and the top of the A and bottom of the M a litte also.

OK! I will make an overview of the process. Give me a time.

For anybody interested in danish typeface design: There is a great danish book from Steen Ejlers "Arkitekten & grafikeren Gunnar Biilmann Petersen". There is a lot of good and typically danish typedesigns (Many of Magnus "snapshots" are from this book. I think.). Pity, that I can say only "Hval hedder du?" in danish. :)
Yes, and there is some old red book about Engelhardt. I don't know the name and author exactly.

http://codan.davi.cz (no www) should work properly or try this one http://www.davi.cz/codan/

Hi, david.

I know the book about Biilmann on several occasions I have borrowed it from the library and I actually have it right now:). It is really nice. I think maybe the Red book about Engelhardt you mentioned is by Erik Ellegaard Frederiksen (another danish graphic designer) and it is called KVE or Knud V Engelhardt. I have never read it though.

I will try to get a sample of my font together and post here.

Hi David

Here's a link to my site with the typeface I mentioned before.
TypeEinz

See Portfolio > Skrifter > Aarhus.

With you calling your face something with Copenhagen I couldn't resist calling this one Aarhus.

MKSG

You have seen Metron, yes?

http://www.stormtype.com/expert/mett.html

Hi, david. Thanks for taking a look at my typeface. I will make a pdf soon.

I just checked out the link to stormtype. I don't think your typeface is too similar to Metron at all. There are some similarities but it is also very different in many ways. And as you mentioned the background of the face is completely different.
I do also like Metron though.

Hi, sorry for the delay.

Here's a pdf with the characters so far.

http://slartok.psychosium.dk/blandet/characters.pdf

btw. Where did you study in Copenhagen?

Magnus

David,
It looks very good! It has the charm.

ChrisL

Hi
regarding the name...

I'm (or was) quite sure that Codan is the latin name for Copenhagen (like Aros is for Aarhus) - thought when researching where Codan the ensurance company had their the name from they state that they got it from the latin name for the Baltic sea "Sinus Codanus" which apparently means "the sea surrounding Denmark".

So I'm a bit confused now...

or the Coda in Strauss' opera "The Nose" :-)

ChrisL

Should I rename the typeface now? I am twice as confused. :-)

Regarding the progress: I was quite busy, but I am going to work on it now (almost one year after first post :-). At least I will place the design process description in few days. I kept it exclusive for one magazine, which seems to be dead now.

—
www.davi.cz

Looking at this again, the bent top horizontals on TEFZ are distracting. Overall, it is wonderfully 'fresh' and 'old' at the same time! If you release it generally, I think it will find steady use, as it has quite a distinctive and good look.

No problem.

If you have any opinion to point out, please put it here.

D.

—
www.davi.cz

David for posting images read:

http://typophile.com/readme

To post new PDFs, you need to click 'edit' on your first posting, I believe, and then post.

If you are interested in trying Codan, you can buy Building Letters 3 — Tsunami Edition magazine. It will be, besides other fonts, on the magazine CD.

All proceeds from the sale of BL 3 magazines and CDs will be sent to Direct Relief International, a leading charity that guarantees to target these donations to victims of the Tsunami disaster.

Note: Codan is presented there in caps-only variant. Unfortunately, I was not able deliver refined lowercase on time. Nevertheless, it contains characters of almost all European languages and some ligatures and alternative glyphs. OpenType.

—
www.davi.cz

Too close to Metron? If that is too close than I can give you ten other fonts that are also too close to metron.

I like the robust feel of it. The G is a little distracting to me. In the W, I think you should try taking away the top part of the right stroke (seen from bottom part) of the two strokes that cross. Get it? Perhaps you should also make the part where they cross now (if you get what I said in the previous sentence, they won't cross, oonly touch afterwards) a little higher by shifting the right part of the W to the right. That will make it too wide, so you should then make the angle of the strokes steeper to make the same as the original width. The s also looks a nit quirky. Anyway, I'm no pro, so feel free to ignore my comment ;-D

Cheers, Jasper

I thought about this, but no. I'm not wasting my time on this. Just one that comes to mind would be Gotham, which means that proxima nova and alright sans can also be included. Metron is a fairly plain typeface, so it's not hard to find any other look-a-likes.

Thats my point.