I’m fairly certain what swash characters are...and have checked typowiki to no avail. Could we get an explanation for those of us not 100% on what we’re designing here? Thanks!

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7 - Mark Simonson’s Courier Flair

Can I suggest that the requirement say, “Create at least three swash characters for Franklin Gothic?”

Ok, thanks guys! This should be interesting since Franklin Gothic is such a neutral typeface.

These are pretty basic, I guess, but here’s my first stab at it...

(revised post, now flouting two rules — thanks, Joe!)

Dude, post “Rain King” please. Bollocks to the rules. =)

Or, you could do, “Richard Kegler”.

who needs rules? bring the swash!

I’m only encouraging breaking the rules, because mine is going to and nobody is going to stop me! =)

OK, if we are allowed to break the rules, here is my Franklin Gothic:

ChrisL

Franklinstein. It’s alive! Alive!

but where are your swashes, chris?

I don’t know how to introduce this:

Christian, now that is just fantastic! You win.

You guys have all cracked me up tonight!!!

But I suspect that the ideas for this contest are being hatched in the Black Lodge. ;-)

frankie goes lowercase.

Don’t know why, but I’m getting this vibe that Franklin’s swashes
should be pixelated... Maybe using pixels of deceasing size with
distance; sort of metaphorical of Franklin having stroke contrast.

hhp

Well, then let’s pixelate it.
Maybe that’s a good job for the microfoundry,
since pixels are so small.

Beautiful, Mattijs. Dig that terminal i.

Franklinstein rides again:

Microsoft has the most famous use of Franklin Gothic. (Okay, so the logo is based on Franklin Gothic.) Of course, I had to keep the ’os’ ligature.

Punchcut dominates Franklin™

Extra points to jared and mattijs for doing characters that will work along side the default characters in the font.

Killer zed by the way, zara.

I knew mine was too tame — badass work, y’all.

Joe, are those Snidely Whiplash mustaches you drew on there? If so, mightily well done.

Go Franklin Go

pd

I did not resist so here is a fast one

Wow I like the lowercase ones a lot more than I thought I would... can’t resist...

Now we back to rock the minuscule, hide yo eyes ya fool, can’t stop the Franklin from ranklin yo stankin rules!

(sorry)

I’m loving this! You guys have all done great work so far. Keep it up!

I’m seeing Frankin Gothic in a whole new light now. I used to work in-house for an insurance company where FG was one of the corporate faces. Since then, I’ve found it a bit dull. But this — this makes me appreciate it all over again!

(Sorry, no entry from me — just a spectator/cheerleader here.)

Pica pusher, that last one is super duper.

hhp

Resistance is useless.

Damn you, you’ve made it even more so:

[edit: I got the T ok, then started on the D & A, when I got an attack of temporary sanity, and quit!]

Not sure if that C works.

Curl the top as well and it will.

hhp

or maybe just the top?

Hmm...

You might have something there, Hrant.

Dang, Pica (Dan), your stuff rocks. Morris Fuller Benton would be proud.

And, Mark, it’s just a given that we’re not worthy to be in your presence. =)

we’re not worthy

Oh, no. Don’t start that. You can stop by any time.

(I think you guys must be spying on me. I have something along these lines on my to-do list, so I’ve been thinking about this “problem” for a while. Not Franklin, though.)

Thanks Joe. Actually I particularly liked your “nightmare before micro$oft”: completely unexpected.

I like Christian’s, too. Franklin Gothic Floriated.

Dan (Pica), thanks. I’m glad you see the humor in it. It’s funny that you made the Tim Burton connection... clearly I need to work on my bezier skillz. (Inspired by FF Ginger.) =)

I have tears in my eyes. These are gorgeous. Testament to your talent. Some of these really take Franklin to a realistic new place.

Franklin Gothic gets ballsy!

Lovely interpretation, Grant!

Sweet condensed fig!

And Grant is clearly a baller...

well... here goes nuffin:

Nuffin? That’s damn near sumpin, Paul.

well it ain’t what it should be, but i figgered it’d do for this game. thanx for the compliments, grant!

I just found this board the other day and thought I would join in. I am going to give this a shot.

This may sound dumb, but how are you putting the images up. I used the img src= code but it didn’t show up. Thanks!

This may sound dumb, but how are you putting the images up.

please see http://typophile.com/faqs

Thinking about Franklin and Swash brought Pepsi to mind so I did this. It needs work but I don’t have time right now to make it decent.

ChrisL

Sorry, I must be blind. The link is right in front of my face.

chris, that was only two. you owe us one more!

Well, I didn’t exactly make these swashes. I borrowed them from Robert Slimbach. I hope he doesn’t mind.

How long will my banishment last?

Swashgasm

That’s just two swash characters… it doesn’t count ;-D

I peaked early

Tim, I don’t think I can accept those as being swashes. And like Dan said, there are only two — minimum requirement is three. :) Please try again!

Isaac, those are some serious clip-on additions but I don’t think the Slimbach swashes are a legal entry.

How long will my banishment last?
Imagine me saying this with a very deep voice and an echo: Forever
Just kidding :)

“How long will my banishment last?”

5 years without parole, “Book’m Danno!” :-)

ChrisL

C’mon you just aren’t swashing enough
Tim

This is a great exercise to watch, very entertaining concepts and wonderful craftsmanship in a lot of cases. It’s also strangely uncomfortable and funny to see this respectable old workhorse all tarted up, like seeing Walter Cronkite walking around in short jean-shorts.

As for the implant of that image in your mind, you are very welcome.

Zara and Mark get my vote... Ol’ Walter never looked so saucy.

My take: I think of a Swash as similar to the relationship between a Roman character and its corresponding Italic. It’s not merely the same glyph with a flourish tacked on, but rather has it’s own unique outline(s).

On a related topic, ITC just released an OpenType version of Bookman, with all of its glorious swashiness restored:

http://www.itcfonts.com/Fonts/NewFonts/2006/Jan2006.htm

“Book’m Danno!” :-)

I’m a swash-buckler (har har…)

I think Joe’s reworking of the Microsoft logo would please Rollie Fingers.

I agree with Jared’s idea of a swash glyph. I was kind of poking at the combinatorial nature of the battles so far. I figured the cut-and-paste thievery was appropriately inappropriate. I know it’s hard for typophiles to read words rather than examine faces, layout, etc, but I’m sure you noticed it says pomo. Isn’t tacky what pomo is all about? Anyway, I’ll take my punishment.

“I’m a swash-buckler”

Dan, You stole my line! :-)

ChrisL

I didn’t mean mine to be so big

OK Dan, This is what I was working on when I said you “stole my line” :-)

ChrisL

Here is a slight variation on the above :-)

ChrisL

Just some joking around:

If these guys only knew what would happen to their names...
(sorry for the white aliasing)

OK, now that I’ve seen all these other lovely entries, I can’t let my initial tameness stand — here’s a revision of one of my glyphs (I already posted three, so I don’t wanna hear any guff).

I’m new at this - as a matter of fact, this is my first time posting anything on Typophile - but I guess I gotta start somewhere...

Duncan

You guys all rock! My favorites so far are by: Joe, Ale, William and Mark... also Zara’s second post. It’s nice to come home from a too-long day and see all this great work!

Haha. Thanks guys. I have to say I’m pretty proud of the MSFT remix. It’s amazing how iconic (recognizable, even when remixed) something as straightforward as the MSFT logotype can become after spending millions of dollars to advertise it and package it.

Steve, I had to google “Rollie Fingers”... (For the rest of you uninitiated: http://images.google.com/images?client=safari&rls=en&q=%22Rollie%20Finge... )

First time poster on here, be gentle with me! First year illustration student with little type experience!

How about this? Makes me think of soap somehow...

Johannes,
Very nice! mostly the w and h are terrific. The S may need a bit of a tweak.

ChrisL

Chesh,

The tail on this new g is much improved over the last one. Nice to see the full stroke. Kudos.

Thanks, Jared — it was your earlier comment about what you see defining a swash that made me realize I needed to open up the bottom and not just imply the continuity.

Chesh, that’s the most narcissistic glyph I’ve ever seen!

hhp

Hrant, we’re all still waiting for you to throw your hat into the ring. How bout it?

Right now I’m wearing too many hats to choose one! :-/

hhp

One of those hats is called Pampers? :-)

ChrisL

Do you think Rollie Fingers could handle the Bar exam? :-)

ChrisL

Narcissistic? I don’t know, I was thinking “foofy”...

Good job, you all.

Let me share something,...
I am reading this from the computer lab
of the Grad.Com.D of Pratt Manhattan,
so i get excited and i think, “let’s play!”
open illustrator, and guess what.
No Franklin on the font list.

Oh my Gothic!!

G.

i’ll be back with some swashes!

Do you think Rollie Fingers could handle the Bar exam? :-)

Chris, I knew I could count on you to pitch in a pun for some relief.

It was a slider but you are still the closer Steve :-)

ChrisL

vote: Zara, Zara, Chesh

Everyone’s entries are so impressive. I had to give this a second try.

Footnote: I borrowed some swash ideas from Poetica.

Duncan

Uh-oh.

Super Vanilla... small preview.

Needs Kerning help and I am not sure about the F terminal... perhaps a more humanist stroke... anyone for a bigger preview?

Okay let’s try again

lunyboy, let’s see it larger!

Ok, bigger... I liked the Bodoni Swash so much, I patterned this after it.

Great work everyone! Lots of diverse interpretations of the challenge, and a fair amount of swash-grafting from other fonts. So what’s everyone’s thoughts? Did anyone dominate this challenge, and if so, why/how?

jb

luny,
Great rendition, your appropriation seems...well...appropriate.
The finial on the F is a bit black though, I’d like to see what it would look like if you shortened the curl to end parallel with the crossbar?

As a purist I feel like the most successful interpretations were those that obeyed the Franklin Gothic framework of low stroke modulation and square corners. (Like mine? Yes.) That said, most of these ended up feeling rather unimaginative. (Like mine...? Yes.) The most exciting turned out to be the ones where the swash was obviously out of place, but was used so confidently that it somehow seemed to make sense. A lesson that holds true in all fields of art: if something is a conscious, confident decision, the viewer has no choice but to accept it!

I still think Christian’s “art” submission is wonderful. The swashes are well-crafted, original and unexpected.

This was touched on before, but much credit goes to those submissions that truly could be used as alternates for the FG family. Jared, Mark, Dan (pica pusher), and Grant stand out.

Oh, and I like mine :)

While most of us kept pretty close to the expected result of swash, I think Johannes Blümel was the most creative in pushing the envelope of “what is swash” to begin with.
We had some nice uses in keeping with the nature of Franklin—and a few miss-matched prosthetic devices as well :-)

ChrisL

Yup, much better... thanks Pusher, I tend to get a little tunnel vision with my focus. See y’all next week. ;)

Well Christian or Jared; What will be the new challenge?
Ready to battle.

here you go. what do you think?

Hi,
this is my first post here and I’m not sure if it’s ok to post after the deadline, but I’ll risk :)

Wow, etothev, now we’re talking swashy notan.

hhp

Eric,
Very nice “gothic” swirl—takes Coke to the level of meaning instead of just device. Well done.

ChrisL

PS: Is Ruth Geshecter still in Cincy?

*bump*

What happened to this? Is anyone going to continue it?

great idea. perhaps a new challenge?

-=®=-

The new challenge can be found here.

Go, Frankie, Go!