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Frimbo Serif *PLEASE* Critique
Please, please view the attached pdf and critique my work. I know there are many things that need to be improved because it just doesn't feel finished, but that's all I know.
 Frimbo Serif sample for critiqueFrimbo1.pdf (62.4 k) |
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29 Dec 2004 — 7:05pm
i love this! it's so quirky. i like how the straights are all nice and even and the curves are all kind of wonky. just one thing i noticed in glancing over this rea quick was that the left leg of the A is too dark, other than that, i'm curious to see how the final product turns out.
29 Dec 2004 — 10:19pm
Although frankly this type of thing isn't my cup of tea, I have to note one significant merit: it looks "undesigned" in a very sincere way; most fonts that try this are so obviously fake in their na
30 Dec 2004 — 5:21am
Paul, thanks.
Hrant, what do you mean "undesigned"? Inconsistently designed, or just poorly designed I would understand, but I'm not sure what "undesigned" means.
I find it surprisingly legible at 11pt, on paper, anyway.
I need to finish the numbers soon so I can present a complete font.
30 Dec 2004 — 10:41am
I guess "undesigned" means that the features typical of a "refined" text face are missing. Like how the "e" is so choppy and totally different than the "o", etc. That couldn't be unintentional on you part (right?) but the cool thing is that it looks it, which is hard to pull off I think.
hhp
30 Dec 2004 — 12:14pm
Is this "undesigned" aspect why only two people have offered criticism? I know the face is very rough, but I'm not certain what specifically needs changing. the "a" needs to be a tad thicker on the right of the counter at the top, the "g" as well. The "A" is thick on the left. These I can see (having printed the sample (11pt) also, the bowl of the lc "p" needs to touch the baseline and the x-hight is too much. Agree, disagree? The S needs to be smoother, too, I think.
30 Dec 2004 — 12:35pm
> Is this "undesigned" aspect why only two people have offered criticism?
That actually seems to make sense. This type of thing is harder to crit. On the other hand, this type of thing might also be less popular [these days]. Dunno. Don't let any of this discourage you too much though! We don't matter that much - your users do.
hhp
30 Dec 2004 — 6:16pm
Noah congratulations, your work is really fresh and spontaneous. I think, as you say, that it can be improved in simple ways.
The uppercase E, L and F are too wide for the structure of the face.
The uppercase bowls of the P and R are almost identical, and this wouldn
30 Dec 2004 — 6:18pm
Also forgot to mention that the lower case k looks a bit narrow and that the bowls of b, d, p and q have the same problem of the bowls of the P and R, they are too similar for the character of the face.
31 Dec 2004 — 7:09am
H
31 Dec 2004 — 9:38am
Noah, I think a study of briem's guide to type would be helpful to you. He explains there how the curved strokes need to be thicker than the stems in order to look the same and other things, these tricks will enable you to keep your playful shapes, but make the face more balanced and polished. For example, the vertical part of your bowls on bcd need to be thicker to balance the stems.
Also you might have a look at Tempus and other Grimshaw fonts to see how he is able to make informal faces very balanced but still lively.
31 Dec 2004 — 12:16pm
nearly a full character set now lots of little tweaks made.
Frimbo3.pdf (40.2 k)
5 Jan 2005 — 5:10pm
It
5 Jan 2005 — 5:24pm
the upper case seems to be quite a bit darker than the lower case. the UC ususally is darker in most faces, but not quite so noticeably. The m sould be narrower. it shouldn't be just 2 n's glued together.
here's another link to look at for some great tips: http://www.typeworkshop.com/index.php?id1=type-basics
6 Jan 2005 — 9:25am
Honestly, these letterforms look completely arbitrary to me. Briem's guide (especially this part), to which William posted a link, is almost the extreme opposite of your project, so I think it can be a good reference.
Anyway, if you really really want to go the 'naive' way, I'd suggest you to apply randomness to all details in your font. The accented characters, for example, they shouldn't be the same base character with the diacritics on top of it.
26 Jan 2005 — 11:18pm
The one thing I can say for sure about this is that the abnormally long tail serif of the "a" creates an awful lot of space to the right of the letter.
27 Jan 2005 — 5:53am
I agree with Kevin, the only one thing I could added is do the same reduction for the lc u
27 Jan 2005 — 10:50am
Thanks gang, I've put this face to bed for now while I try my hand at a more formal face to get a better understanding of the nuance of fonts. Nothing (or, almost nothing) was arbitrary, but a lot of the considerations now strike me as idiotic. I would really love more feedback on nsfBook.
Frimbo will be revived as a display face some day.