Golden Bus Co.
I've spent the last week on holiday and in that time I've filled two sketch books full of new font idea's. The Golden Bus Company typeface is the first I've transfered from sketches to screen (still need to transfer the lowercase sketches).
I was reading a book called 'The Wrong Way Home' by Peter Moore which covers his travels from London to Sydney overland (along the old hippy trail), and one part of the journey involves travelling across Pakistan on colourful buses, the pictures this put in my head were the starting point for the font.





31.Aug.2003 1.16pm
Thank Stephen

As per your suggestions.... More curve added to the R & K seems an improvement to me, I edited the C a bit and the diamond in the O was off centre.
31.Aug.2003 2.30pm
This is pretty neat. I would try softening the groove on the R, B, and D where it goes "straight", just to see how it looks.
Paul
31.Aug.2003 4.00pm
The new K seems topwide. The A feels a little shy or small.
On holiday and still skecthing fonts? I know the feeling.
7.Sep.2003 10.29am
Hi

I've created a selection of A's. I think one of these should work?
Also my first attempt at the lower case, it has some serious problems, but tell me what you think, and what you don't think works.
Thanks
15.Sep.2003 1.51pm
I'm partial to the second or fourth A.
I like the beginnings of the lowercase, particularly a and k. r and c stick out, though; r has a huge gap underneath it (maybe you can tweak your fishtail terminals to alleviate that - retracting the upper portion and extending the lower) and the serifs in c break the counter into two. Also, in f and t the repetition of terminals creates this confusing sawtooth effect (I suspect that you could preserve your feel while alleviating this by using single-lobed terminals with the same characteristic 'fin' shape). e also catches my eye for its thin strokes - how would a more open variant, with a diagonal crossbar perhaps, work out? It seems to be a very linear character for a distinctly circular face.
Quibble: The P is inconsistent with B and R. Deliberate?
20.Sep.2003 1.03pm
Jim,
I really like this font. I would pick the first or the fifth A; the latter's shape would be in keeping with those of U, X and Y... As for the lowercase, I have to agree with Shreyas' comments...
Looking forward to seeing more!
20.Sep.2003 3.46pm
i think the Q looks a little heavy. and i too like the fifth A better. lowercase looks awesome.
24.Oct.2003 11.26am
Fantastic! Don't stop.
24.Oct.2003 2.08pm
incredible
i love it
26.Dec.2003 4.47am
After months of not being able to work on my type, I have a full week of quality development time.

Iam trying to push myself to get Golden Bus Co to at least a beta release.
I started the lower case again, it may mean I have to tweek the uppercase a little.
The e, f, q and r stand out as possible problems?
is the g bottom heavy?
29.Sep.2004 1.13pm
29.Dec.2003 10.10am
I think you're resolving the "formalisms" very well. The only think that bothers me is that some glyphs (like the "s", "v" and "w") need stroke modulation to reduce clotting.
hhp
29.Dec.2003 2.05pm
thanks Hrant! Your feedback / help is much appreciated...
29.Dec.2003 5.34pm
This version of Golden Bus Co. is great, Jim. I agree with Hrant about the clotting; you may also want to look at 'c' and 'e' again; they seem to have a 'beak' to the right side.
12.Jan.2004 2.18pm
The s is disapearing when I reduce it down, what do you think of these?

12.Jan.2004 6.06pm
#2, or 3
Not crazy about your e. As it was the s and e both stood out as oddballs. I would put the crossbar on an angle to open it up a bit.
Randy
12.Jan.2004 6.39pm
Yikes. I think those solutions are way too much of a departure from the style. I would go with something more like this:

18.Jan.2004 12.45pm
The story behind the latest version of Golden Bus is that I met up with Peter Bilak and Max Kisman in Amsterdam, and not being shy, I got out print outs of two of my faces and invited comment.

Peter kindly put in nicely... "It's interesting that you have made the width of the letters the same all the way round, because most people adjust the weight to make the letters flow better".
So taking this advice and some of Max's scribbles on board, I've started to alter the weight of the letters...
I think it's moving in the right direction, what do you think?
19.Jan.2004 6.27am
Nice! It's in the right direction, definitively.
I'll add two suggestions:
Move the red points on 'b' a bit to the right (the same principle applies to 'a', 'd', etc).
And make the lower stem of 'c' shorter (I think it'll bring more balance to the letter).
19.Jan.2004 5.23pm
It occurs to me that this face might be a good place to explore the descending 'e' (and 'c', for that matter) that Hrant brings up occasionally; you could open up some counters by dropping the ends of the letters below the baseline.
The new, modulated forms are great.
19.Jan.2004 6.09pm
These new ones are much better bro!
kris.
29.Jan.2004 6.43am
First font here i feel obligated to buy when it's released.
30.Jan.2004 1.51am
thanks for all the nice comments and advice, Iam slowly making progress and will post a full spec in the next week or so.
Jim
13.Feb.2004 10.22am
I like the 1st & 4th cap As. It would be great if the were alternative characters! This is wonderful.
6.Mar.2004 3.10pm
Everything is progressing well, but Iam unsure about the new lowercase 'g' I've been working on.

6.Mar.2004 4.51pm
I've always loved the first one - why the doubt anyway?
hhp
29.Sep.2004 1.13pm
ok, just as i think I am done with this font (it has been released as part of the Building Letters 2 pack) I start to wonder about the weight distribution in the uppercase.
The top version is the released version, the bottom one is where I have made changes to th weight distribution, what do you think?
29.Sep.2004 5.35pm
Jim, Es una de las tipografias m
29.Sep.2004 5.35pm
Jim, Es una de las tipografias m
30.Sep.2004 2.24am
Juan,
31.Aug.2003 10.59am
- Pretty. Did you offcenter the diamond dot in the 'O' on purpose?
- The second 'C' looks nice, but is just a tad too closed.
- Why not add some curve to the 'K', 'Q', and 'R' strokes?
- I like the 'X' much.