ruben!

First font, my foot! It's hard to believe you're
just starting out in type design when you have
such a great grasp of form and consistency.

I like the base shape, the rounded corners and
the angled terminals. I'm sure this face will
lend itself well to a bold weight too.

Two small concerns:

- The 'M' distracted me immediately. I'd like to
see the middle come down a bit to match the
other caps.

- The '4's counter is much smaller than any other
glyph. Maybe an open topped '4' is in order.

It's very cool overall and there is certainly
a market for this look. Peter Bruhn of Fountain
might be watching this critique closely. See his
latest.

Stephen

Also: let's see it small! In Flash maybe?

Ruben, I agree with Stephen: I think you're lying. ;-)

Seriously, pardon my language, but this is one goddam good design. I do happen to have a fetish for designs that combine the mechanical and the organic, but Oban (great name, btw) really is class.

Stephen's suggestion for the numeral "4" is right on, but for the UC "M" I think it needs more than just a lower middle: it needs a curvier middle. Also: the "K" is imbalanced, the "Q" is amazing, the "X" too wide.

In the lc, "k" and "x" have the same problems as above, but overall I'm salivating to see some text.

Non-alphanumerics: The exclamation/question color needs help, the dollar sign is the only one with a double bar that I've ever liked, the ampersand rocks, the BP is too stiff, the Pilcrow is great, the Euro looks forced.

More, please!!

hhp

Stunning. I agree about the uc M, and I think the @ need work... The dollarsign was great. Overall a very nice feeling, friendly without looking corny. Will you sell it to me when it's done?

Ruben - Release this beautiful creature no later than tomorrow, okay. I'll camp out tonight. Where do you live?


bj

Let me add my praise for this specimen. I love the squarish forms and gentle tapers. The whole alphabet is very exciting and has enormous potential.

The lower leg of the K seems a bit thin, and the round corners of the Z seem inconsistent with the way you've handled similar junctions.

As for the punctuation, the letterforms seem close - I think I'd need to see the punctuation in context to judge their compatibility.

Nice work reminds me of Henk Elenga's" Crank8 Plus/Minus" and Mike Kohnke's "Gregarious"

Ole, nice composition!
But font-wise, I think Oban has a unique earthy reality to it.

hhp

As far as others out there...'Ectoplasm' by t26 has the same general flava...Oban is more classy.


www.t26.com

Here is a sample of henk elenga's "Crank8" font.
Is this to die for or what?

Hrant, these last 2 compositions are not my work, I got them from a site and a book just to demonstrate the similarities with Oban.

I like all three, uh four. If I had to vote

1. Oban
2. Crank 8
3. Ectoplasm
4. Gregarious

I wanna give Oban a good hug!

Sbo

Crank8: really really nice numerals!

hhp

thanks a lot, for each comment, I'll take in consideration each of them, for soure.

i'm finishing some other works these next days, but as soon as i can i will post some corrections and also a text preview. by the way i tried to use the font in flash to post it here but the same curves that work perfectly in freehand sometimes doesn't look good on flash but other times do. i dont understand wy, but i don't really use flash usualy so maybe i'm doing something wrong.

by the way, it realy is my first font but i'm working on it for some time ago, and in the last few years i had read a lot about type design, even before i started to draw these one and i had talked with some friens and done some research.
so maybe that's the reasons,
thanks a lot for the compliments,
i gave my best to it.

thanks, again, and see you as soon as i can, bring you more news.

Concerning Flash:
I've noticed that cubic bezier curves (the kind that PostScript uses) seem to get distorted more than quadratics (which TrueType uses). Translation: Try exporting the font as a TT (of course after you move the letterforms from Freehand to Fontographer - or Fontlab).

hhp

ruben, very very nice, i love it!!!
absolutely fantastic for a first timer.
and stephen is right, Oban should be distributed by fountain. it would fit in that library perfectly.

So, did this font ever get released?

there's something similar to this called Reform that i happened to just brush by in the headlines...there's obvious differences but could say it started with this?

Ruben, this is really nice. I'm seeing that the leg of the UC K is too small or doesn't extend far enough to the right. It actually seems to jump left and right a little when I look at it.

I like the feeling of this. Kind of reminds me of the letters in the Sezession House designed by JM Olbrich.

Jon