Typophile - Least Favourite Letters - Comments

Some of my least favorite

Dan Weaver — Thu, 22 May 2008 08:34:55 -0700

Some of my least favorite letters are IRS and IOU

Ww, Xx and §.

satya — Thu, 22 May 2008 05:04:14 -0700

Ww, Xx and §.

“And this from the former

dberlow — Thu, 22 May 2008 03:26:01 -0700

“And this from the former “Young Turk” of the type design world?”
Young turks grow up and learn the horrible truth of composites;)

Cheers!

Is it permissible to make

Bendy — Wed, 21 May 2008 11:54:45 -0700

Is it permissible to make the left leg of the circumflex shorter on a lowercase h?

I would have to say the

Roger S. Nelsson — Wed, 21 May 2008 09:05:32 -0700

I would have to say the icelandic lowercase ð (eth) is the most troublesome. Its intended design is often very difficult to implement in modular typefaces, in more regular typefaces it still has a very different form than most other letters, and the bowl almost always have to be smaller that the xheight to make space for the crossing bar. And then it has to be kerned separately. Argh! ;)

And I’m always wondering where to put that circumflex on the lowercase h in Esperanto...

“I cringe whenever I know

sii — Mon, 19 May 2008 20:18:27 -0700

“I cringe whenever I know I have to make a san serif i-no-dot.”

And this from the former “Young Turk” of the type design world?

I am speechless : I hate the

AGL — Mon, 19 May 2008 19:27:44 -0700

I am speechless : I hate the G, the W along with the B ! Don’t know why...

Wonderful thread there,

Bendy — Mon, 19 May 2008 15:28:41 -0700

Wonderful thread there, Paul! This discussion is more interesting than I thought. Humm.
Vince, yes, I should have said glyphs perhaps, but for now I’m working on the numbers and letters only...it’s an ultra black weight and gosh the W and w are difficult! I can’t seem to master 2 and 3 either, no matter whether lining or oldstyle!
I guess the challenge should makes you experiment more creatively how to resolve difficult shapes, so they should turn out more interesting.

maybe you missed this

paul d hunt — Mon, 19 May 2008 07:48:05 -0700

maybe you missed this thread, which induced one of the most sublime humorous moments here on typophile...

I cringe whenever I know I

dberlow — Mon, 19 May 2008 04:17:31 -0700

I cringe whenever I know I have to make a san serif i-no-dot. Just makes me sick all over, fever, sniffles and aches due to cold... for 15-20 seconds, and then it’s over. I love all the rest.

Cheers!

in the real world you have

vinceconnare — Mon, 19 May 2008 04:08:22 -0700

in the real world you have to make more than A-Z and the worst historically have been ’fractions’ everyone in every technology always hated doing the production of fractions. The two others are in the image above and they need to be in every font now if you expect them to be considered professional. I hate currency symbols.

But to come back to your

aszszelp — Mon, 19 May 2008 03:40:23 -0700

But to come back to your question, they are not least favourite. It’s like asking, which is your least favourite child. I don’t think you have one. You love them all alike, even if some are more annoying :-)

I find following letters

aszszelp — Mon, 19 May 2008 03:39:24 -0700

I find following letters hardest in Antiqua Roman: g, ʒ (that’s a long z, not an old-style 3), 8 and old-style (i.e. x-height) 2, though for different reasons. In the case of “g” I have trouble because of its form, I tend to want to play around with it, to innovate (a lot!) but then have to realise, that in a conventional font you might not be too far from designs known by the reader, and I find myself bound by tradition. I’d really love to conceptualise the g, but in non-display fonts, the strong deviation from readers’ expectation is a no-no. Actually, I blame the type designers of old, when they derived conceptual forms from calligraphic ones, they would not do so with g, even emphasising its calligraphic origins. The ʒ is troublesome, as I’d like it to harmonize well with both g and z. Most fonts use regular stroke width as defined by ductus for that letter, while z uses the reversed one. I dislike that. 8 makes most trouble in bold faces. But the book and light faces have to harmonise with the bold one within the family. Old-style 2 is a b****, actually all figures make troubles, as they keep the ductus-induced stroke width, while in the case of the lc letters the pen-determined stroke width is overlayed by forms and ductus-considerations from the (epigraphic) capitals. A formalisation, that has never been done consequently historically, and now is “tradition”. The vertical stroke of old-style 5 in roman fonts is hard as well.

L. You would think a letter

pu.ej.23. — Sun, 18 May 2008 19:15:55 -0700

You would think a letter so minimal would be easy to design or set, but it is the complete opposite. I have always found that the lack of space, ends up “overshadowing” any sort of harmony or clarity. This is especially obvious when two lower case L ’s are together, or next to a lower case I.

w is a real bugger; because

James Puckett — Thu, 15 May 2008 15:13:39 -0700

w is a real bugger; because it has to relate to well, so is v. I find most of the figures are downright nightmarish, but that’s probably because I do it so rarely.

Least Favourite Letters

Bendy — Thu, 15 May 2008 14:30:07 -0700

This is a funny question, perhaps.
What are people’s least favourite letters to design when starting a font? Do they get left until last, or do you get them out of the way first? Are they the ones that are simple or complicated?
I’ve only started on one family but it seems my least favourites are left until last in all of the weights. I think I don’t like the ones that seem like their shapes can withstand less experimentation (like M, V or Y), or are similar to other shapes (P or Q), and love the freedom of experimentation with complicated curvy shapes (like a, g, e, s). I like designing x too.
I find number glyphs the hardest, but that’s probably because in my daily life I am subjected to more letters than numbers so they are more familiar.
Does anyone else find the same thing?