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TYPE BATTLE: Week 10 (3 April)
Posted by Christian Robertson in
3 Apr 2006 — 1:18pm
3 Apr 2006 — 1:18pm
TYPE BATTLE: Week 10 (3 April)
Here’s your chance to stretch your type muscles on a weekly basis. Each game kicks off on Monday with a new challenge, and closes at midnight PST on Friday. Anyone may submit a design response to the challenge. You may enter as often as you wish. Post anytime. Critiques and comments are welcome throughout the game, from participants and spectators alike. Smack talk is encouraged.
Winner take all, no holds barred. May be the best designer win.
Link directly to this thread: http://www.typophile.com/battle10
Requirements:
- Size: 600 width x 400 height. 72 dpi
- Color: Black and white only
- Format: Please save your graphics as PNG
- Only respond with the characters posted in the challenge.
// THIS WEEK’S CHALLENGE: 'S' MAYHEM
Draw a total of 4 s's. Four weights: light, regular, bold, ultra-black. And sissy rectilinear s's don't count.
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3 Apr 2006 — 9:02pm
Just to kick it off:
4 Apr 2006 — 8:22am
Yeeeehaw:
4 Apr 2006 — 8:42am
I thought we might be talking about actual drawing by hand but I guess not. Once I get moved into my apartment today I'll hop on this exercise. Nice woodtype-esque example you've got there, with a perfect 'Yeehaw' intro to boot!
4 Apr 2006 — 9:50am
Kris: are there other weights of Karv in the works?
4 Apr 2006 — 11:53am
Kris, those terminals are so elegant; great attention to detail.
Randy, I love how your terminals start as balls and then as weight is added they just can't be ballsy enough without turning into slabs!
I'm afraid mine was kind of a hip-shot. I wanted to try an S that was really narrow, and get a huge dynamic range out of it. I bet it looks like something already out there:
4 Apr 2006 — 2:19pm
Slabb-tastic Randy! Yeehaww indeed. As for Karv, well, I don't know. I am still trying to figure out what would be better, more weights or a huge alternate glyph set. The s's above were based on Zinc, which I think is far more promising!
Here is another attempt, I'm trying to see how black I can go…
4 Apr 2006 — 2:38pm
more weights or a huge alternate glyph set.
why not both? >^P
4 Apr 2006 — 2:52pm
okay here's a stab. critiques welcome:
4 Apr 2006 — 3:23pm
here's something slabby…
4 Apr 2006 — 5:22pm
A sssskeleton of ssssomething I have been thinking about... I used an Illustrator brush(if it isn't obvious) to make it more expressive. Pardon the amateur attempt.
4 Apr 2006 — 6:16pm
»thought we might be talking about actual drawing by hand«
This was just too tempting; thanks Mr Bailey. Can't sacrifice much time (not even at 3.00 am), so all is drawn out of the loose hand (with some few guides predrawn) and I messed up the fill of the blackblack s ;-) Also, notice how the "regular" s is taller than the rest, while they should get subsequentlyever so slightly taller. oh well.
k
4 Apr 2006 — 6:24pm
Kris: Second: I love how the contrast runs in the light! Maybe changing the spines' angles for the bolder weights would make them even better.
Paul: I would almost expect the bolder weights' terminals to bend slightly inside à la Bureau Grotesque. Nice! I think the tops could all be a tad bit smaller than the bottoms. Also, in the bolder weights, try putting more mass in the spine, less in the top and bottom.
Lunyboy: That Illustrator brush can teach you a lot about how letters are constructed, don't dismiss it as amateurish.
Just my 6 ¢
k
4 Apr 2006 — 6:37pm
oh and
but that already existed
;-)
k
4 Apr 2006 — 9:42pm
Yet another way to bend the rules...
4 Apr 2006 — 11:16pm
Hey, my name's Jeff, this is my first time ever doing something like this, let me know what you think.
5 Apr 2006 — 1:08am
Jeff, the unorthodox weighting of the main curve of the first two weights give the Ss a lot of character. I wish it carried over to the two bolder weights, by maybe changing the angle a bit. Those are some distinctive serifs there.
5 Apr 2006 — 7:26am
I changed the bold and black as per Jong's observation, I think they fit together much better now. Thanks for the feedback.
Jeff
5 Apr 2006 — 9:15am
wow yeah jeff like those serifs! ::downloads to steal idea later::
5 Apr 2006 — 9:33am
koleslaw: I like your idea but it seems more of an exercise in color rather than weight.
nick: Your slabby serif has nice form but the regular and bold weights seem too similar, suggesting maybe you put the regular on a bit of a diet.
5 Apr 2006 — 10:05am
thanks David. off to the fat farm…
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5 Apr 2006 — 10:44am
5 Apr 2006 — 11:04am
Here's another where I tried to make the width of the light equal the counter of the ultrablack. It's straight interpolation via fontlab. Need to tweek the ends to make the middle look better. Its interesting how it goes from being a workable text font, and in the last step goes to bubble letter display. I wonder if other letters could be interpolated from light to bubble like this. Probably not.
5 Apr 2006 — 12:17pm
i thinned out the regular and tried to give the black weight a little more personality…
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5 Apr 2006 — 2:42pm
Nice, Randy. That's a really good example of how different members of a 'family' can have very different personalities. It's like the skinny uptight aunt on your mother's side sitting next to the fat drunk uncle on your father's side.
5 Apr 2006 — 5:38pm
»thought we might be talking about actual drawing by hand«
Nowhere does it say letterforms must be created digitally. :)
6 Apr 2006 — 12:25am
Here's my attempt #2
6 Apr 2006 — 3:01am
OK, the 'proper' curvy one is there to legitimize the posting of an otherwise "sissy, rectilinear" one: I was just grabbed by the sudden idea of "fractal emboldening"! I hope you'll all excuse the simplistic square "light" version on those grounds!!!
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Ever since I chose to block pop-ups, my toaster's stopped working.
6 Apr 2006 — 5:00am
Beeyootiful! I especially like Koleslaw's, Randy's and Dave's.
6 Apr 2006 — 7:54am
I tried out another letter so see if the monoline -> bubble in a single interpolation was a one-trick pony. It's not exactly right, but it's not terrible either. The middle was a first attempt. The bottom is after tweeking the ultra master. The mid-weights are still not right and I prefer the ultra version in the middle, but it's a decent start.
If I was going to turn this into a font, I'd probably make the masters the light and black. Then do the doublestuff version on it's own. Too much of a stretch to use the same nodes as the light. Fun to push the limit though.
6 Apr 2006 — 8:22am
Randy, this is great. I love how you rationalized the weight changes. almost like going from a text to a display face as it gets heavier.
6 Apr 2006 — 8:25am
Hi all! May be it's too ordinary but I have done this.
6 Apr 2006 — 11:13am
Randy, which two weights did you interpolate/extrapolate between?
6 Apr 2006 — 12:36pm
drawn by hand, scanned by an imbecile.
Tim
6 Apr 2006 — 12:41pm
None of you are creating the image at 600x400 px ... :^/ (Not complaining, just noticing.)
7 Apr 2006 — 5:53am
Light to Ultra Black.
One end to the other.
7 Apr 2006 — 11:58am
I am loving Randy's S also! Nice work.
7 Apr 2006 — 1:03pm
i like the S, but i'm not so sure about that A…
; )
8 Apr 2006 — 1:25pm
8 Apr 2006 — 2:22pm
> back in grade school
hell yeah! i remember drawing those!