Good thing defiant doesnt have an s in it.

Or perhaps:

Nice battle. If I have time I'll make something. :)

Love Jos Buivenga's first submission (the plump and yummy one)! Will we see more of this alphabet when the fury of the battle has ceased?

Randy, Great entry. (Perhaps not the second image. LOL.)

Alex, liking this one a lot.

Jos, great as usual.

Ooh, Randy, I didn't see your new one. That's great.

Randy with the mad skilzes…

Here's one I'm working on...

Will try some more later in the week ;)

Jos, that first one is great!

love the handdrawn one Randy! and nice work all around.

working on one

based on Caramel, a typeface in progress...might look like Randy's a bit, or perhaps reminiscent of the Esquire logo or maybe even Ricola. :)

Wow! I think you guys should develop the entire set of these and release them even though you might not win the competition. They are really great!

Jos, I kind of like your second one too. The "fi" blend in really well...

Time to jump in...
and the 'fi' has to be a ligature or else the
i would be negative and the whole conceit falls apart...

or low x-height...

I am

ChrisL

Thanks all! My favorite still is the first entry from Randy. Not the skinny one ;-)

+++

Love Jos Buivenga’s first submission (the plump and yummy one)! Will we see more of this alphabet when the fury of the battle has ceased?

It is based on this, but I'm not sure if I will finish it.

another

*smack talk mode ON*

I'll be back. Some guys found it was okay to copy me before I even submitted my entry. I'll have to come up with something more “original”.

*smack talk mode OFF*

xD

Wow - these are all amazing! I started writing a list of my favourites, but it turned out it was practically all of them... So I'll just humbly say well done instead!

(If I did have to pick a favourite, it'd probably be Beejay's latest one, for what it's worth...)

[semibad]

presenting the "gebrochene stiefelknecht". i know the stem width is not 1/2 the x-height but anyway. hope you enjoy.

Go easy on me...

Really like the hand drawn one, Randy. That's sweet.

Enjoying yours eliason!

rubenDmarkes - those are both great.

This is the Black/Ultra weight from a typeface I've been working on. Not exactly 1/2 of x-hight, but still quite heavy. :P

Still a bit wonky … but this was a lot of fun. I like fat faces.

Wow, a lot to learn – there are some awesome submissions here! I'm a big fan of Randy's first posting and I think all of those from Jos.

ChrisL

ChrisL

Damn, ChrisL... only 249 characters to go. No time to waste. Go go go!

And do not be defiant! I expect the final designs on my desk by Tuesday of next week.

Michael

Ok so my e doesn't fit with the others...

Chris, STEP AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER.

Don't listen to Michael. Finish those other fabulous fonts first! We want Froggy, Now, Boulder, etc.

Your latest are just horrible! Don't look at them :)

LOL!!! Thanks Michael and Bill!

Now I have more "in the works" than I can remember. I am trying to get one out the door but keep stopping myself!

ChrisL

So, Randy, is that 2nd one tattooed on your chin? :-)

Nice lettering at any rate.

ChrisL

A bit odd, but now it's done and I'm not going to waste it!

Made some small caps. With an i-dot that defies all the rules.

Nice, Altaira!

internal brackets in the E A could be lightened a little at the bottom ...

Chris, because there is stubble that has to be my chin? Ewwwww.

these are all looking great!

beejay: i'm drooling over the caramel-ly one

rubenDmarkes & altaira: nice to see some caps in here

"there is stubble that has to be my chin?"

I assumed it wasn't a bikini wax at least :-)

ChrisL

Thanks, guys :-)
I tried to fix this a little …

sort of surprised not to see anything like this yet...

Lots of great stuff so far. Altaira, how many entries have you put in!?

Anybody notice that when an a is that bold, it starts to look more and more like a schwa?

Um… just two, pica pusher, although one of them in two variants. I'm not the wildest one yet ;)
Nice script treatment btw!

I spy cheaters. Who is *not* drawing from scratch?

;)

My favourites so far are Quincunx's and Randy's first one. Here's to defying!

>I spy cheaters. Who is *not* drawing from scratch?

That must be me. I thought I read the instructions very carefully ;-)

>> That must be me. I thought I read the instructions very carefully ;-)

Well, me too, technically. Wanted to draw from scratch, but time at the moment. So I thought better to post at least something. :)
Plus I'm currently working on that typeface, so it kinda is from scratch. :)

Quincunx, hope we can see the rest of your design soon. It's really nice. I think my second favourite is the Caramel one. I'm impressed by all of them actually.

@Zara...Yas. I suppose only my second two should count as the first was only tweaked, not drawn from scratch. ;)

1. Create an alphabet where the stem width is 1/2 the x-height.
2. Then, design the word “defiant”. Extra points for creating an fi ligature.

Winner take all, no holds barred. May the best designer win.

----

I don't think you did anything wrong Jos ... unless there were other rules besides the two above?

I'm not spotting the cheaters, either, hmmm.

maybe someone needs to define the rules a bit more. At a site of type designers, it's natural that people would dig thru their archives and find some letter styles that might work, stuff built-from-scratch, but not necessarily this week.

- going by the rules, nobody has created an entire alphabet (a-z) solely for this, have they? Does the term alphabet imply 26 letters?
- there's lettering to create a logotype. (the rules don't forbid it)
- the rules don't say to create something 'brand new', do they? Maybe this goes without saying, I dunno.

Ngoc or Zara, help us out here because there's some confusion. :D

Thanks Brian, I knew I was't doing anything wrong ;-)

To make this battle more fair ... Just use the same tool I did to defiant you existing designs.

Here are the consequences of defiance. My cheat is color.

I did draw all of mine completely from scratch but I did not do a complete character set. I did not think that was required!

I also have a few typefaces in the works that fit the brief but didn't post them because they were not done specifically for this contest. I do not see that it is written in the brief though so I can perfectly see how some people could have assumed it was ok.

ChrisL

My eyes are stinging a bit from tiredness, so I'll probably hate this come the morning...

Ngoc, I took the liberty of revising the rules to represent the intent of this battle.

The battles are usually and by default designed to get you drawing type, not remixing existing work. Of course, key battles specifically will ask you to remix existing fonts -- Battle 2: Franklin Gothic Swash anyone?

dang @ the color specs, missed that. :(

randy that's awesome, finish and release!

late edit @ joe: okay ... for someone new coming to the thread, maybe it could just state that up top? :)

gonna draw something brand new later in the week.

Drawn from scratch, check. Black and white, check. F-i ligature, check. Somewhat incongruence uncial-inspired forms, check.

There is nothing in the rules that says *you must follow every rule exactly…* but I suppose the hopes and intent are that you would create something original (I thought I spied a modified Goudy Heavyface, but I"m probably wrong because I stink at Type ID). Thanks Joe, for revising the rules.

What I said should be taken with a grain of salt. As it says in the initial post - "Smack talk is encouraged." I am just here to give you a hard time. If you haven't noticed, I don't often participate myself because I can't draw type very well - therefore one could argue that I shouldn't say anything :)

- going by the rules, nobody has created an entire alphabet (a-z) solely for this, have they? Does the term alphabet imply 26 letters?

Actually, yes. A few of people have created entire alphabets, and entire typeface families based on their own battle entries.

"A few of people have created entire alphabets, and entire typeface families based on their own battle entries."

I have in several past battles done this (including Froggy from the Cooper Black Ligatures battle) but not in this particular battle. I will do the rest of the alphabet tomorrow to be legit for this time.

ChrisL

Tuesday Chris, no wiggle room... and that includes caps, numbers, punctuation, diacritics and at least 1000 alts and 25 fi ligs!

Michael

I believe this violates the black and white only rule. Anyway, I gave it a shot. Nice work everyone.

Vertical stems are half the x-height. Horizontal stems are nearly half.

Randy and Christian - We get at least one marketable alphabet from you two with every one of these Battles. No exception here. Really great stuff. Don't be so humble and shy (or is it perfectionist/indecisive?), put 'em out there!

Christian, I'm curious to see how you handle the cap E, and letters like r as these letters, defiant, are very weight friendly (big boned?). I will say that this is the most legible ultra-gordo i've ever seen. I think an interesting exercise in type design is to do a crazy heavy like that, and then try to get the same character in a light version. Bonus points for direct interpolability. Sounds like next week's battle!

Stephen/BJ, thank you for your kind words. Now I need a cracking whip. Looks like some OT calt will be needed for smart high/low joins. Should be interesting: o-r would be a strange combination.

Ruben, I like your Pressig-style clipped one. That is the technique I use to rough out characters or lettering. The danger is that sometimes I fall in love with the clipped-ness and cant find the same charm in a smooth version!

Well, well. Looks like you managed to bend the rules in your favor. That's so defiant of you!

I'm so proud.

Keep em coming guys! Great stuff so far. Would it hurt, though, to throw down a full alphabet? Now that it's not in the rules, I say it's the best time to do it! :)

Randy, nice suggestion. I'll add it to our list.

"...I think an interesting exercise in type design is to do a crazy heavy like that, and then try to get the same character in a light version."

Randy,
I still have 4 weights to go but the idea I have been working on is close to what you said. Here is a quick sample:

ChrisL

Oops, I missed the part about the full alphabet. I did draw from scratch, but only those letters in the word. Luckily, I realized that late enough for the rules to have changed since. :-)

>> Quincunx, hope we can see the rest of your design soon. It’s really nice.

Thnx, Bendy. It's actually a version of the typeface I've posted on the crit board quite a while ago. It has changed considerably since then, though. Had not worked on it or a few months, but just picked it up again. :)

Randy, actually my last entry is based entirely on a single regular lowercase A I drew some time ago… the straight lines all come from that! They were all there. :P But it is true that it looks much more interesting as a fat face.

It's a bit disappointing to see you folks so stuck up on rules… I kind of thought it all started out as a joke and then some people took it seriously! As Zara said, she was only smack-talking. There was no need to change the rules… this is what makes rules so great! Especially vague rules! They give us a chance to find ways around them! In fact, I was assuming that was the whole point, being that we had to design the word “defiant” and that the whole thing was a challenge… :P

Not very original I know, but it's my first time.

You need to change that 'e'. ;)
Make the bowl/ear on it vertical as well, so it will fit nicely.

my first post in a battle. be gentle

jos takes it imo

Thank you Quincunx. You are totally right.

It's not terrible, but it's a bit more marker pen than the minimal black letter i was going for.

I do like the ligature on Jos' first entry.

Personally I like Christian Robertson's entry.

It’s a bit disappointing to see you folks so stuck up on rules… I kind of thought it all started out as a joke and then some people took it seriously!

says the guy who has posted nothing but BLACK, rule-adhering glyphs????

Oh, I see, you're defiant in your letter spacing, I get it.

/end trash

and I'm (mostly) kidding Ruben, but c'mon now.

i'm all for defiance and rule breaking and thinking different. Clearly, that's where the best stuff usually comes from, in art and design.

but given the climate around here, the mob-mentality in certain threads (papyrus), and a vague call of cheating from a typophile moderator, you kinda want to be on the *right* side of the rules...so it helps to know what the rules are.

:D