Typophile - Average | Text Font - Comments

I think considering the

hrant — Mon, 9 Jan 2006 20:53:16 -0800

I think considering the depth*, and hence the size
range that it would work best at, the weight might
be slightly dark. On the other hand, you do need
decent repro for a gentler Roman-Bold difference
to be risk-free.

* http://typophile.com/node/15367

Some micro stuff:
“g”: too pudgy - give it more contrast (probably just in the joins).
“k”: unhappy.
“t”: too busy in the top-left; maybe make the bar go left more.
“@”: bottom-left gap is too tight.
“B”, “M”: too dark.
“O”: right side of counter is malformed.
“Y”: a bit narrow.

The spacing is off (as I suspect you already know).
Also, considering again the depth, and the weight,
I’d make it tighter overall.

Keep it up!

hhp

The new pdf it’s the first

fontime — Mon, 9 Jan 2006 09:39:50 -0800

The new pdf it’s the first aproach to bold version in comparison with book weight.

Thanks in advance.
Et

The following step is bold

fontime — Wed, 9 Nov 2005 12:06:48 -0800

The following step is bold or black. Be patient.

Thanks for their aid, are invaluable.
ET

Nice. Italics? Bold? R

Randy — Wed, 9 Nov 2005 11:08:06 -0800

Nice. Italics? Bold?

E: crossbar serifs a bit too

hrant — Tue, 8 Nov 2005 09:47:01 -0800

E: crossbar serifs a bit too big.
J: leaning clockwise.
M: needs color relief in the armpits.

f, g, r: I’m thinking that the teardrops need a small
shear at the end, to match the sharpness of the rest.

3: slightly too light in color.
7: bar slightly too heavy.

hhp

Hi all: “C”: I mean,

fontime — Tue, 8 Nov 2005 09:37:32 -0800

Hi all:

“C”: I mean, that the new counter its better for text.
“EFH”: changes in crossbar.
“W”: adjust in color.
I lowered the points of the i, j, dieresis and tilde
“s” balanced
“t”, vertical it’s higher

If I continue learning, I continue growing.

Thanks,
et

Eduardo: This latest round

Randy — Fri, 4 Nov 2005 14:04:21 -0800

Eduardo: This latest round of revisions was great!

I agree with Tiffany on the crossbar of the E, F and H being too even.
Notice you your vertical stems have a waist and flair into the serif. Try this here too. Gradually get thicker until the serif (more bracketing too), or in the case of the H maybe a little thinner in the middle and thicker as the crossbar approaches the stems.

Nick: I don’t have much experience of looking at faces on the critique forum, but it seems that designers just say, here it is, what do you think? and the critics say, “correct this detail, correct that detail”, and the poor thing gets normalized into oblivion.

I have to disagree. I have looked at a lot of faces in this critique forum. What I see are the same novice mistakes in the vast majority of cases (eduardo’s effort here excepted). Sometimes they have naive charms yes. I don’t feel like I’m doing anyone a diservice by pointing them out. As Ed Benguiat says in his classes: “That letter is wrong. But if you want it wrong, do it.” He’s being totally sincere, and points to Barry Deck as a person who’s wrong is right to many many people.

Great to see you in the critique forums.

Randy

OK, I guess you’ve settled

hrant — Fri, 4 Nov 2005 09:39:01 -0800

OK, I guess you’ve settled on that “g” structure... What I would do though is make the top-right corner of the bottom bowl thicker, towards the outside. The “j” needs slightly more stroke contrast in the tail I think; and I would make its head serif longer.

UC: Isn’t the “C” too wide, and its bottom curve too flat at the end? The “G” I would make a hair narrower too.

The bar in the ordinals seems too close - in small sizes it will clot. I like your “ch” ligature - very nice. The other two though are a bit unhappy at the head of the “t” though. The bottom-left of the eth seems unhappy. And I would make the bar of the Eth go in less deep.

Spacing: unless it’s for smaller sizes (in which case the color is a bit light, and the vertical proportions a bit too deep*) the spacing is a bit loose - although at “boundary conditions” (like in the “ki”) it’s fine.

* http://typophile.com/node/15367 :-)

Looking good.

hhp

>I prefer to see

Nick Shinn — Fri, 4 Nov 2005 09:27:24 -0800

>I prefer to see “uneven” as: something confined to overly distracting color;

That’s my sense of its meaning also.

Lovely. Can’t wait to see

Miss Tiffany — Fri, 4 Nov 2005 08:25:04 -0800

Lovely. Can’t wait to see how you solve the italic. My critique is fiddly and specific. You can ignore all of it if you think I’m too late or if I’m speaking non-sense.

- lowercase s — appears to be leaning backwards, just a bit, and the diagonal seems a bit heavy.
- cap W — fills in at the apex. too heavy. i am very sensitive to cap W and it seems to need a little more tlc and character.
- What if the bar on the cap Q had a little more flair?
- cap C — a little too big? or just drops down too far? In the french version, it catches my eye.
- cap E and F — the middle crossbars seem too safe and even.
- lc c —
- Can you add a touch, just a hair, more flair to the accents?
- lc p — bowl seems a hair to wide.
- lc u — does it hang too low?

- favorite characters — y, r, a

News and changes. Thanks,

fontime — Fri, 4 Nov 2005 06:56:50 -0800

News and changes.

Thanks, I’m learning every day with your comments.

> creates unevenness It

hrant — Thu, 3 Nov 2005 22:28:50 -0800

> creates unevenness

It depends how you look at it. If somebody considers a certain conventional mean as being some sort of formal requirement then I guess any divergence from that could be called “uneven”. But since I don’t believe such a mean exists (at least not at the formal visual level) I prefer to see “uneven” as: something confined to overly distracting color; and something that can actually be useful - with there being such a thing as too much evenness.

In this design for example the original “g” -which JF complained about- I would never consider “uneven”, even though I can’t really be sure it’s structurally ideal (although I suspect it’s fine, and I like to give the benefit of the doubt to divergence/innovation - as long as it’s well-motivated).

hhp

>there’s a difference

Nick Shinn — Thu, 3 Nov 2005 22:05:23 -0800

>there’s a difference between interesting structure and just bad finish,

Interesting structure can easily look like bad finish, because it stands out and creates unevenness. So it’s easy to notice and say, ’clean that up’.
So if you have a few examples of weirdness, they are excised, and the thing gets an even finish, but ends up bland.

The other route to go is to multiply the weirdness so that it takes over the font, but in an even, well-finished-weird kind of way.

Weirdness, pardon me, I mean personality, can also camouflage bad finish, by rendering “good” finish an unecessary fussyness.

> the poor thing gets

hrant — Thu, 3 Nov 2005 21:26:23 -0800

> the poor thing gets normalized into oblivion.

Actually, I make it a point to cry “too normal!” when faced
with a YAHS* or something too close to Adobe Serif**... But
there’s a difference between interesting structure and just
bad finish, or a mismatch between a font’s color, vertical
proportions and letterspacing (wrt its intended-use size).

* Yet Another Humanist Sans.

** http://typophile.com/node/14737

hhp

I like the way the curved

Nick Shinn — Thu, 3 Nov 2005 21:04:28 -0800

I like the way the curved strokes are so much wider than the vertical strokes in the lower case.
I like the flat top of the h. m, n, and the way it’s different from the magnificent curves of p, d, b, q.
I agree with Hrant, don’t smooth out the quirks.
In fact, why not go in the other direction?

I don’t have much experience of looking at faces on the critique forum, but it seems that designers just say, here it is, what do you think? and the critics say, “correct this detail, correct that detail”, and the poor thing gets normalized into oblivion.

Why not show the rough and the smooth and ask, which do you prefer?

Perhaps you could try this face with much longer serifs throughout, as demonstrative as the “ball” of the a.

Average | Text Font

fontime — Tue, 2 Aug 2005 11:40:11 -0700

Average | Type for Books

This font it’s the result of deep study of anatomy and spaces of types for text.
Not kerning pairs today.

09 january 2006 The first letters for bold version and complete book for comparison.

Thanks for your comments.
Eduardo Tunni