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Daffodil: very small pixel font
Posted by Ringo in
4 Aug 2006 — 8:23pm
4 Aug 2006 — 8:23pm
Been working on it all night, couldn't get it any smaller by now. It's supposed to be read, you know.
I wanted to have the shapes as thin as possible, however they must be clear and somehow... deviant.
What do you think of it?
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4 Aug 2006 — 9:52pm
I don't know if it's just me... but I can't read it... like at all.
Well, I can make out "it doesn't mather whether your ...", but then I fall back and have to moisturize my eyelids.
-- David
4 Aug 2006 — 11:19pm
It's very difficult to read, sorry. Maybe if you join the pieces of the letters... What do you think?
5 Aug 2006 — 2:48am
Thanx for your helpful comments! Must have been working on it too fanatically, really thought it was small but legible.
The idea was that all horizontal and vertical parts should not meet each other, in order to keep the shapes thin. That's why some letters are broken up.
But, following your remarks, breaking up the shapes DOES break up legibility.
It's a shame, now I have to leave my principles. ;-)
(there will be an update)
5 Aug 2006 — 4:21am
Now I come to this:
Does it work?
5 Aug 2006 — 5:57am
Latest (final) version, with all gates closed:
Btw: could it be smaller than this (below)?
26 Nov 2006 — 6:17pm
final version reads better than the previous ones
it seem quite proportional except for the "y" glyph, side by side comparison with the "g"
keep up the hard work
27 May 2007 — 4:36am
try to look at the moonbase alpha font, it's based on the same minimalistic pixel grid idea.
18 Jul 2007 — 6:53pm
I like the concept of having letters with forms that are completed by implication.
Nice. (Unreadable, but nice. :) )
31 Jul 2007 — 3:06am
Hmmm – I don't think it is that unreadable, I can make out the characters, but my mum couldn't.
Januzzi Smith designed a limited pixel font for The London School of Arts, the concept font was for screen only, but it had some interesting forms.
With regards to yours, I liked some of the earlier forms within the characters, but they were less legible. It is the balance between interesting letter shape and legibility. The closer you come to making it legible, the more it looks like other pixel fonts …
5 Aug 2007 — 11:48pm
I guess I don't understand the rush to pixelize fonts. Why not use the standards already readable? Afterall, it is not an artistic venture. It is a minimal venture, and there are so many already out there. JMO.
27 May 2008 — 11:22am
Hi all,
Out of a need, I just created Picopixel, probably the smallest pixel font on the planet.
The "rush to pixelize" is because only with pixel fonts, you can get that small. With normal fonts, characters get unreadable after you go below a certain size. Pixel fonts are optimized for their size.
What do you think of it?
Badda
Click here to download the Picopixel True Type Font file
2 Jun 2008 — 8:34am
hm, the change in x-height makes it really hard to read. i think you'd be better off having all lowercase as high as a/e/s, as you dont save any space by making the rest shorter...
6 Jun 2008 — 7:15am
Thanks for the feedback. Here is the changed font:
Image upload always fails, so I'm linking to an image of the font here.
Click here to download the Picopixel v1.1 True Type Font file
16 Jun 2008 — 3:14am
Here is the image of the font ...
Upload only works with IE, not with Firefox ...
19 Jul 2008 — 4:11pm
badda, it's readable. I like it. Uppercase usage should work well. Can you fix "V" and/or "Y"? They are very similar. Also "0" and/or "O"? Maybe a slashed zero? Also can small "a" have a counter for consistency?
19 Jul 2008 — 10:52pm
Also can small “a” have a counter for consistency?
But the e doesn't have a counter either.
25 Jul 2008 — 2:18am
I agree with Alphapeta, I didn't have too much trouble reading your first draft & it definitely had much more character. Since you posted it in the pixel DISPLAY section, I would guess you choose form over function. In that regard you should leave it the way you originally designed it.... it looks good & it's legible enough.
16 Aug 2009 — 3:15pm
I guess I don’t understand the rush to pixelize fonts. Why not use the standards already readable? Afterall, it is not an artistic venture. It is a minimal venture, and there are so many already out there. JMO.
Regards
-----------------
Sohbet | muhabbet
20 Aug 2009 — 5:51am
> I guess I don’t understand the rush to pixelize fonts. Why not use the standards already readable?
No offence, Ad3m, but can't the same be said for vectorfonts or pretty much everything? We're already spoiled for choice when it comes to vectorfonts, music, art, books, movies,...
> Afterall, it is not an artistic venture. It is a minimal venture
Pixelfonts are a great way of learning about type in a simplified way. Besides, simplifying things & bringing them back to a minimum of pixels is an artform in itself. The power of suggestion & fooling the eyes is a big part of designing pixelfonts. Not everyone can do it.
5 Sep 2009 — 8:10pm
Photography spam?! Now that's low.
hhp
28 Jan 2010 — 3:12pm
Hi,
i build a mini-font with 3x4 pixel…
you can see it also here: http://joern-friends.de/studium/kunsthochschulekassel/3x4/
Jörn
28 Jan 2010 — 3:33pm
Am I back in 1999?
28 Jan 2010 — 3:37pm
Well, with the iPad's ridiculously low resolution...
hhp
22 Mar 2010 — 3:43am
Hey, Ringo,
i really like your minimal font as it keeps it identity throughout both upper- and lowercase letters despite the mini-grid it's designed within.
Some years ago i felt the urge to make a 3x3 pixel font (http://cargocollective.com/slowercase#318485/3x3-Font-for-Nerds) just to see if it was possible to deschipher the 3x3-pixel-matrix as letters. I guess it's not so hard ;-)
It would be cool to see how much identity / which variations one could put into these limitations.
anyone else made a 3x3 pixel font out there?
fred
22 Mar 2010 — 6:23am
anyone else made a 3x3 pixel font out there?
http://fontstruct.fontshop.com/gallery/all/shared/descending/1/any_categ...
9 Dec 2010 — 9:34am
Really small pixel fonts (1x5)
http://distractionware.com/blog/?p=193
9 Dec 2010 — 11:54am
Accck! This is too much like trying to do WP on a Speccy!
17 Jun 2011 — 7:29am
2x4 in grey scale ... For some letters I went to huge 3x4.
17 Jun 2011 — 9:01am
Why don’t you guys focus your subpixel skills on greyscale pixel fonts at reading sizes?
17 Jun 2011 — 9:26am
Maybe because:
1) Some people do this sort of thing because they enjoy the constraint.
2) The more pixels, the more work it is, squared.
BTW, I for one would love to make subpixelfonts (I just made that up)
but it requires Photofonts - does it have pretty good penetration yet?
hhp
30 Jun 2011 — 2:22pm
Maybe because:
1) Some people do this sort of thing because they enjoy the constraint.
That's it - and you can learn a lot about the way our visual interpretation works.
I did it just for fun. I also design 16x16 pixel icons from time to time - the difference is not that great. It's pixel art (and I started with that 20 years ago).
2) The more pixels, the more work it is, squared.
You cannot compare the workflow. At the lower limit it becomes quite complicated.
BTW, I for one would love to make subpixelfonts (I just made that up)
but it requires Photofonts - does it have pretty good penetration yet
As far as I know: No.
30 Jun 2011 — 2:27pm
I think making glyphs is an order of magnitude more complex than making icons.
> You cannot compare the workflow
Having made bitmap fonts of various sizes since 1982 I certainly agree there's a difference, below a certain threshold. But towards the top of that threshold things can get much harder in a different way, especially if you leverage manual anti-aliasing:
http://www.themicrofoundry.com/manademo/
hhp
5 Jul 2011 — 5:17am
In my opinion especially according manual anti-aliasing you can compare the workflow.
And in both cases - if you want to do a good job, it's a lot of work because you have to define every individual pixel.
Your font looks nice - interesting aspect that you used a decent structure on the squared brackets.