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re: Critique forum: What makes a good sample?
Posted by cuttlefish in
28 Jan 2010 — 3:15pm
28 Jan 2010 — 3:15pm
Some questions for those who give critiques in that forum:
What makes a font sample useful for evaluation?
What sizes, layouts, arrangements give you the information you need on which to make informed commentary?
What statements do you hope to read when designers submit their designs for critique?
(Posted here since it's as close to a Forum Advice column as we have, though so far not very close at all.)
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28 Jan 2010 — 4:54pm
1) Character set.
2) My alphabetically-ordered pangram:
«Abacist's deaf dog hijacked luminous parquetry studio, avows ex-yakuza.»
And/or my "metagram"*:
«Incredibly, he makes a major life-change! For example: "I'll require that the system have two sizes."»
3) Ragged-right paragraph block with correct leading.
* http://www.microsoft.com/typography/links/news.aspx?NID=2454
hhp
28 Jan 2010 — 3:49pm
Thank you, Hrant-
That should scare most of any aspiring type designers. :·)
I think that whatever you've made can very well be evaluated. The more you have, the easier critique.
28 Jan 2010 — 4:06pm
Take a look at the samples on CommercialType.com. The pdfs of Guardian Egyptian Text are really (too?) extensive, different sizes, different leadings, combinations of bold and regular, small caps, set in different columns, waterfalls of different weights.
28 Jan 2010 — 4:10pm
One thing for sure: no lipsum.
29 Jan 2010 — 8:24am
"Abacist's deaf dog hijacked luminous parquetry studio, avows ex-yakuza"
Ha, that's a keeper. (The other one too, but I knew that one already :-)
Dunno, I'm partial to samples that have a large showing of the base alphabet (at least as long as it's being intensely worked on – later on in the process, a smaller one showing the entire character set should be more useful); and I strongly agree that text fonts should include actual sample text at actual target sizes. When evaluating alternatives, both/all should be shown in context.
For the text setting: Maybe the best idea would actually be to show both the target language of the font and English*; while the former can show the desired texture, and how the font deals with language-specific peculiarities like diacritics, the latter can give most people in here an impression of how it reads.
(* Assuming it is a Latin font.)
29 Jan 2010 — 8:32am
BTW, there's also the shorter variant:
"Abacist defogs, hijacks luminous parquetry studio, views ex-yakuza."
But I like the other because it gives a respectful nod to the venerable
and still highly useful "quick brown fox".
hhp
1 Feb 2010 — 2:51pm
Do you know of any metagrams in Cherokee?
1 Feb 2010 — 3:29pm
I don't even know a word in Cherokee!
hhp