I’ve got a slow Monday going (for a change)... He’s my first attempt - eleven characters.

So that is what triline means. Pretty obvious I guess. Am I the only one getting an empty wiki entry on that link?

That’s really fun, Grant.

How’s this?

I’m a big fan of that ’S’ in Grant’s design. It looks springy.

I’ve never really done pixel fonts so bear with me...this is kind of a WIP:

None of you are ready for the thing I’ve got up my sleeve!

Just a quick doodle. Geometrical design, Greek caps.

Thanks Chesh.

Thanks Lauren. I think my cap N is too wide and not springy enough.

Dan, I love how yours looks like it’s made of folded ribbon.

Solid stuff so far...

Joe, you’re such a tease.

If you’re posting enlarged specimens, be sure to show it at 100%!

Dan, that is supa-fresh. The folded ribbon thing is unexpected, and just cool.

Lovely lowercase k, Dan!

This is kind of bland, but I’ve never tried to create anything like this before, so I wanted to put something together.

Duncan

No italics?

No italics?

Darn! That sounds there like a chal-lenge!

I’m on it… will post soon, maybe tomorrow, Central European Time…

Where is Hrant? Even with a new baby, he should be all over this :-D

Maybe the black and white only scared him away, as it could be construed to prevent the use of gray???

Come on, though! Where’s Mana Triline?

Anyone who could successfully pull-off a combination of this with week 1’s challenge (i.e., a triline pixel font that was also a slab serif blackletter) would win my undying respect. Hell, I’d pay for that to be turned into a font!

...And don’t forget the swash characters!

Hi, here’s my first attempt at anything like this (also my first post to the board of anything I’ve made). Enjoy.

Nice stuff everybody... Josh, nice to see a very angular triline. Kind of a nice breakaway from the usual Bauhaus-style triline.

Earlier I wrote: None of you are ready for the thing I’ve got up my sleeve!

Nevermind. It’s sucking wind at this point. I was trying to do a constructivist-inspired triline in bitmap, but it’s awful. =)

You mean, something like this?

Revised entry:

David, scale it down to actual size please... =)

I guess I didn’t make it right...I just used the default grid in Photoshop and went at it. My file is at work so I’ll have to figure it out tomorrow. How is everyone else going about this? Hmm looks like I should’ve just changed the grid to pixels. Doh! I’ll repost tomorrow.

Tim, minimum requirement is 10 characters, keep on drawing!
*edit* Oops, I didn’t see your first entry!

David, yes, you’ll want to work in individual pixels.

——————
nc

Here is a rush job.

Take no prisoners!

Zara! Citadel!

Those last 3 and Grant’s are tops.

Someone call Miguel into the ring!
(Or is that too scary?)

Someone call Miguel into the ring!
(Or is that too scary?)

Not scary, exciting!

oh.my.god, you guys. These are simply, beautifully, wonderfully awesome. I bow down before you. They are all just so goddam great. and i can’t decide which l love the most ... But Jared’s thrift rodeo is right up there, as is Zara’s alphapixels + pleasing pixels, and Tim’s Atoma, and dan’s ansichbarkeit, and grant’s insolvency ... and and and ...

-marian

Tim, that Blackletter is a good start. Now try making that triline a real mix blackletter AND slab, and show more characters ;-)

Here is my italic attempt.

Zara, that last pic of yours is really nice.

Jürgen Weltin

Here’s a more complete take on Dan’s idea.
Now even slabbier, and with a silly swash character just for the sake of it.

Kevin, I’m liking that blackletter…

Steve, both of your rock, but the FERTZLIUPH would roch herder if you wouldn’t close the endings off, i.e., if thez weould be open like in your second design… I think that you could still keep the tapering effect somehow…

Tim, the whole rason that the slab-blackletter challenge was so hard was because in most blackletter designs, the pen is held at a 45-degree angle (or somewhere around there), while slab serif typically have thick rectangular serifs at 90-degree angles, reinforcing baseline, x-height, etc. You’re blackletter looks sweet, ahd has heavy serifs, but they aren’t slab serifs. To make a blackletter a slab serif, you have to break it a little bit, so it isn’t blackletter anymore.

Dan is right that the slab serif idea loses some of its characteristic appeal if you tilt the slabs to conform with the diagonal axis.

Soo.... Something more challenging here:

Image got lost.

That is starting to look really interesting.

Now we’re cooking with pixels. Fantastic work everyone.

Zara, your flourishy sample has me giddy. Calligraphic without being too flowery. Jared, that woodtype variation blows my socks off. Woof! And the italic styles showing up are killer...

Here’s another one trying to get as small as possible.

Here’s the actual size post...sorry about the earlier ones :-)

The blackletter styles are great! Steve, very nice stuff, but must be black and white! I know, it’s hard… your “fertzliuph” is wonderful.

Marian, I’m tickled pink that I’ve made it onto your list, and I just said “tickled pink” for the very first time. I could imagine this might be something you’d be very good at - please join in on the fun!

Grant, I’m so glad I could make you giddy. I had to laugh when I finished the curly one, because it (unintentionally) looks just like the triline version of my last, well, only pixel font.

The last version of the blackletter style was too shy, here’s a much more stylized one:

..and I’m a fan of Rodeo and Alphapixels, too!

Here’s what I’m working on now, sort of a sci-fi extended type dealy...

formlos, i like the ligatures that are happening with your sample.

Thanks, Enrico, Its actually roughly based on my previous ’Typophile Battle’ ( Slab Blackletter ) submission

Dav

Tim, fantastic! How does the complete uppercase look? Numbers?

I was going to sit this one out, but you start clicking those pixels, and the next thing you know it’s past 9:00.

Nice pixel-clicking Mark. Looks a bit like a version of Mostra Black, no? And you do know what the best tool for clicking those pixels is, don’t you?

HyperCard - in Fatbits mode... w00t!

And speaking of mucking about past 9:00 pm... again...

... here’s another one. A tip of the pencil tool to Jared for the inspiration.

Grant, nice work. Feels fresh. Any chance you’re building these on the Newton?

a little bit improved.

I also started a new style and i would like to hear what u think about it!? I had no time to make more than one charckter yet.

Yeah, Grant, what is that program?

Grant, I was going to say something about how great FatBits was in MacPaint on the first Mac. HyperCard probably used the same code (both written by Bill Atkinson). Great idea. I should be using BitFonter (which I own) but I used PhotoShop so that I would just have a big, white canvas to work on.

Jared, on the Newton? Nope. For the Newton, absolutely. Newton fonts are basically TrueType fonts without the outline data. The bitmaps are stored in sbit tables, with optional width metrics for printing using a PostScript printer’s built-in outlines. There are tools which facilitate moving the bitmap data back and forth between the formats. Unfortunately, there’s no native bitmap editor for Newton. Sigh.

Dan, HyperCard was a simple, programming tool from Apple that used hyper-linking and a ’stack-of-cards’ metaphor. I still use it for rapid development of file and text manipulation utilities. As Mark mentioned above, it was originally designed by Bill Atkinson, the father of MacPaint. The one-bit paint tools are simple, clean and intuitive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercard

Mark, if you need more real estate (and you feel like popping into Classic) you can create a custom HyperCard window that’s nearly the size of your screen. Here’s a screendump of the largest HyperCard window possible displaying on my 22 inch Cinema display.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/splorp/94540666/

I’ve only just started playing with BitFonter (specifically to update the current Newton system fonts to include the Euro). I kinda miss using Altsys’ Fontastic, actually...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/splorp/90881231/

height = 5 pixel

Yeah, baby! The smallest one yet. Superb.

Steven, I think the ’H’ is great, it is very Maya-esque. I’d love to see more.

It was too hard to resist playing with this idea more so here is another one I threw together.

Also... Steven, I really like that “H.” I especially like how it meets the requirements for this battle but it does not look pixelated. Does that make sense?

Duncan

Here’s something... Haven’t had much time to bake this one; therefore it may be semi-hemi-demi-half-baked.

Here’s my first post.

I still feel like there are some issues with the color. But for a first attempt I’m pretty satisfied with it.

Hope you guys like it.

“Smalltalk” is nice, Dewitte, but it seems a little... you know... big.

Good stuff. Woodtype seems to work out quite well!

Dan, here’s a complete alphabet for my last design. Some letters need more work, and there are still no numbers.

this is sort of a mess, but not as messy as the triline bike graphic i tried to make to go with it.

This has been so great to watch, that even a non-desginer like me feels the need to fire up Photoshop and have a play. Is it acceptable to murder a few old classics like this?

Great work,Tim! Your blackletter has got personality. However I wonder whether the k, r, and x could use more definition - I’m not sure I’d know what that character was if taken out of context.

Barcodoni :)

Jared, how about Van Halen? :^D

I don’t have the time anymore today to play with it but I invite anyone who’s interested to take it and elaborate on it. Do me a favor and change the “A” - I avoid those rounded-top As at all costs, but just got lazy this time.

Jared

wowsville, glen! that tri-line blackletter knocks my socks off! totally rad!

(okay i know i should be shot for using three !!! in a row, but i really was blown away)

Glens really makes me nostalgic for the old Mac Classic Prince of Persia games... the titles had that same feel to them, somehow.

Anyway there goes my lunchbreak today:

Thanks for the positive response!

I’ve been making more letters. I’ll re-post as soon as I get done.

I just made a few more letter. Sorry, I didn’t have enough time to make more. Perhaps next battle.

great stuff everyone! it’s been exciting to see so much variety…

here’s a revised version of my original post—now those are some pixels, baby!

—————
nc

Pica’s knotwork gets my vote, closely followed by Glen’s Ming the Merciless.
Tim

A little belated, but here are some A’s for Jared. Didn’t have a compelling idea for this challenge myself, but here was a little thing I could contribute.

I adored the wood type ideas. If I were a pixel-font-using designer, I’d be all over those.

Paging Miguel Hernandez...

I would love to see what Miguel would do with this.

Paging Miguel Hernandez…

I would love to see what Miguel would do with this.

Holy crap he would own this thing... One look at those fonts and my self-confidence ebbs away like the tides...

Hi !

Here is my idea

Do any of you have plans of porting your designs over to Fontstruct?