Hi Craig

To me |C| and to a lesser extent |c| and |e| jar a little. Elsewhere the stress is pretty much vertical so these characters seem to bulge at bottom left. Also, top right curve in |a| seems a little abrupt.

Cheers
Dave

You know what I think, but this is the best place to say it: this is very polished and seems extremely readable, but it's also difficult to see people noticing it, and if they do, difficult to imagine them thinking it's anything but yet-another-Century. This will sound strange coming from me, but: put more of your personality in it!

BTW, what's with the foot serifs: adnate on the left, and on the right what I call Doric (like in my Maral)? Isn't that too Po-Mo for this context? But hey, it might actually address what I wrote above... If so, why not apply that weirdness to the entire font?

hhp

Lovely work, Craig. I'm enjoying this.

Some observations (remember the salt!)

• I don't understand the serifs! Will their shape be visible at target size?
• Favourite glyphs /b/, /g/, /s/ and /y/.
• R looks a bit top heavy, maybe that's intentional? If so, make it more top heavy?
• Is the lining zero a bit pointy?
• There's something cuspy going on in the top of the counters of B, E, F, P, R and S (but not D). It's not pronounced enough to be a feature, but is poking my eye just enough to be something. Also check your lovely ampersand, there's a glitch on the arm.
• G may need a pointier spur to harmonise with b, q and @. Is @ a bit too pointy?
• Foot spurs on /d/ and /u/ may be a bit clotty? Perhaps trim the inside of the spur and/or make the notch taller?
• Descender of /j/ may be a bit of a loose curve? Similar story with /f/. Maybe that's just my preference though.
• Foot of /f/ in /fl/ has got mangled.
• Arm of /k/ looks to start a bit high up the stem.
• Comma/quotes I'd make the tail much longer...as you know I obsess about commas!
• Bold looks newsy, regular looks booky, somehow, is that because of the higher contrast in the bold?
• Check bold /u/'s width. Actually the regular /u/ may also work slightly narrower.
• Bold /g/'s ear may need to move upwards to prevent crashing/splotching.
• Lining numerals are splendid. 6 may need a bigger bowl.
• + is a little meek. Love the %.

I like the right side a lot!

hhp

R: it's more about the 'black balance' — you could narrow the bowl or add a bit more weight to the right foot by splaying the serif a bit higher. Either way the black would be weighted slightly toward the base of the glyph.

u: to me it still looks a bit counter-centric, I'd bring in the stems a little more, or add more black to the curve.

I've just surprised myself by seeming to be now talking in terms of notan. Someone will be happy.

Here's what it looks like if I exaggerate the serif funkiness and propagate it to the rest of the letter.

The second 'Renoir' looks a bit too quirky to me. Off coarse it should be more of YOUR personality, but I think a serif like this (underneath) will be visible at your target size. As Ben Mitchell said, "Don't forget the salt". It's just a quick suggestion :-)

A text font from the modern era, in several optical sizes? Your competition will be Consul I assume.

Good luck, looks great.

The Italic caps are certainly one great place to improve on tradition here.

hhp

I like this! As a type user and not a type maker, these were my observations:

The second 'Hn' you showed on July 1 reminded me of Calluna, with that 'flow' or 'twisting' at the serifs. The whole Museo-to-Calluna thing seen here.

The ampersand has a lean/tilt to it. I've seen that in other Century faces, and it struck me as odd. Is there a particular reason it came to be part of the style of Century?

Now we're talking! :-)
In fact I think the Roman could stay highly imitative as long as it has an innovative Italic - that would be just the right kind of motivation for a designer to choose the type for a certain type of job.

hhp

Thanks for the encouragement, guys. Pressing ahead...

Ha, I was hoping for an ascending /p/... :)

What types would you point me towards to understand what you have in mind with italic cap structure?

I hate capital U, and I don't think capital G is working.
Still have to go through all and check stroke weights.

Questions that arise with these narrow lowercase forms:
1. Is it okay to keep the caps uncondensed, or will they jump out?
2. The narrow letters make the extenders look shorter. Is this a problem? What relationship should extenders in the accompanying italic have to those of its roman?

>Is it okay to keep the caps uncondensed, or will they jump out?

I'd want it to be deliberate either way; make them obviously uncondensed (U, V, W and Y look rather narrow) and have a reason behind it, or draw them all in to match the lc.

Cap G draws attention, looks a bit Ambicase!

>What relationship should extenders in the accompanying italic have to those of its roman?

I read somewhere that the extenders should be visually the same length, which means shortening them slightly to compensate for the slant. See here

Are the stems of U slightly nonparallel?

Sometimes it's good to shorten an Italic's x-height too, although
more for reasons of differentiation than apparent length of stems.

hhp

A different /U/ that abandons the returning construction.
Widened those inner serifs on /AKMN/ (and now /U/ too). Making them less timid, without resorting to Nouveau lachrymals?
Looping /L/ structure inspired by Frode. And then... The same on the /T/, which means dropping the upper right serif. I'm excited about this idea: I like the structure, and I suppose it could make some spacing with lowercase easier. But have I gone too far? :-)

I love that T! :-) (maybe it’s a little bit short on the right?)

You know, you need only a slight whiff of this in the regular to bind the two together. I’m very much looking forward to the further developement of this.

Thanks for the encouragement guys!

I think some of those near-collisions are just as uncomfortable: mainly g ear vs. y top left serif. You could also give that pair some extra space between the descenders: loosen up the y? How about a ligature for gj in the cursive, or maybe just overlapping letters?

Man, I've been pushing this concept with the cursive capitals for so long :) Great to see you have a whack at it, Craig!

Maybe pull a Mrs Eaves.

hhp

Yes, that worked.

My standard suggestion: give the French-style OS nums a try.
Ascending 3 and 5. It really makes more sense, and would be another
way for this font to stand out. I would even try ascending the 2.

hhp