Typophile - Rough-cut sans, up for crits. - Comments

Cool!

Stefan Seifert — Tue, 5 Feb 2008 08:49:54 -0800

Cool!

Ah yes, I like those cuts, I

Quincunx — Mon, 4 Feb 2008 08:48:24 -0800

Ah yes, I like those cuts, I understand what you mean now. When I have a new monitor, I will definitely try something like that. The typeface had more quicks like that when I just started on it, and I might have smoothened it out a bit too much along the way. I might make a alternate version with rougher verticals like in your illustration. At least I think I’ll find it interesting to try.

I was planning on making my italic a bit like that indeed, for which I actually already sketched some letters a while ago. I will see if I can find those, and post them here.

This is the kind of thing I

James Arboghast — Sun, 3 Feb 2008 21:13:43 -0800

This is the kind of thing I have in mind, with spacing correctins. The cuts to the type outlines are rough. Some familiar ideas there, namely fracturing and folding, most of which is aimed at generating more line contrast. The vertical kinks on the stems take up standard semi-serif positions. If you build a few characters like these and slant them the forms should lend themselves well to italicization

Your regular spacing PDF makes for an improvement in word formation but the space “character” is buckling under the strain. Setting will work much better with a wider space.

j a m e s

Ok that is cool. No rush. I

Quincunx — Sat, 2 Feb 2008 17:15:52 -0800

Ok that is cool. No rush.

I will have to take a short break from the typeface anyway. I have to get another monitor, since this one (which is already a backup) seems to show things a little bit stetched horizontally. I never noticed this, since it looks normal, but I noticed it because my typeface printouts looked compressed.

With other words: once I have a new monitor, I will have to re-establish the hight-width ratio of all my characters. Since they are actually more condensed then I had designed them on screen. So, not too great. But since I have to make italics and such, a little extra work isn’t such a big problem. And I might come to new insights while inspecting all the characters up close again.

:^) Yes I was thinking 7 of

James Arboghast — Sat, 2 Feb 2008 11:43:51 -0800

:^) Yes I was thinking 7 of 9 would be a good name. Hold on I’ll try to get some drawings done soon and post them. Sorry for the delay.

j a m e s

I have posted a sample with

Quincunx — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 14:27:47 -0800

I have posted a sample with decreased tracking called ’regular-spacing.pdf’. Decreased with -15. I’m not sure if that is enough? Or too much?

I will study a couple of faces indeed. And you’re right about kerning; I wasn’t planning on doing any before I’ve established the sidebearings.

I’m not sure if I’m picturing the ’Voyager’ concept right. Can you illustrate it? But I guess it should be called SevenOfNine or Janeway maybe? ;)

Can you decrease the

James Arboghast — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 10:52:56 -0800

Can you decrease the tracking further with InD to tighten things up for the presentation? Just as a temporary means of refinement.

From what you’re saying you will need to create a new side bearings plan from scratch for the regular. Study a high quality commercial sans serif font of similar parameters to yours. In practice there is no point trying to kern a font until the side bearings are well and truly sorted. So don’t be in a hurry to start kerning.

Also, you should try to acquire good word form with sidebearings alone, optimizing later with kerning.

Rough Cut Voyager concept: I’m picturing vertical kinks in the stems, forming asymmetric stem structures. They should be subtle like the fractured entry strokes. Fractured vertical stem stressing.

j a m e s

Hey James, thanks once again

Quincunx — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 09:40:56 -0800

Hey James, thanks once again for the critical eye on my work.

I think you are right about the spacing, it should probably be a bit tighter.
I already artificially (as in; in InDesign) decreased the spacing a bit. But since I still have to make the final sidebearings, I will take that in account. The sidebearings of the Regular and Bold are a hodgepodge of remnants of earlier versions. Only the Black weight have better defined sidebearings, which are rediculously tight, which I think is nice.

Once the evaluation period at my art school is over (where I will show this preliminary version of my typeface), which is coming friday, I will start on the kerning as well, which of course will also improve the word-image (or bouma’s, if you will). And of course italics. And other details, like some characters that are too heavy (e.g. the ’t’ in regular).

And you’re welcome to post any images to show the concept you were talking about.

This anim shows a spacing

James Arboghast — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 01:14:02 -0800

This anim shows a spacing treatment aimed at forming more positive word shapes or “bouma”.

Nothing at all to do with the next generation — Rough Cut Voyager :^) with its advanced kink serif design.

j a m e s

January 2008

James Arboghast — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 20:13:41 -0800

January 2008 iteration
Regular is very impressive, almost ideal except for the over-generous spacing. The weight will “bite” the whitespace and give improved immersive reading preformance with a small reduction of the sidebearings.

The weight will make a fine book type. The modulation and kink logic is so well refined now I can visualize a natural extension of the design. Let’s call it “kinked stressing”. You’re halfway there already. Would it be okay if I post some drawings to show the concept?

j a m e s

I’ve added a new pdf

Quincunx — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 09:39:53 -0800

I’ve added a new pdf called ’weights2.pdf’. It has all preliminary versions of the weights, and I’ve probably changed quite alot of the characters since the last pdf as well.

Yep-yep-yep. With this

James Arboghast — Sat, 1 Dec 2007 18:34:11 -0800

Yep-yep-yep. With this latest thinned-down version we’re starting to see how interesting things get when those kinks get close to the softer outside lines.

Make a few glyphs at a thinner weight and post a bitmap rendering and get some feedback. Say, A, O, T, R, V, a, b, d, e, f, h, i, p, o, s, v. That should be enough. When we think it’s on-target for a book weight and the sidebearings are about right you can make the rest. I don’t want to see you do too much work.

Cheers Paul :^)

j a m e s

Thanks for the

Quincunx — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 06:53:22 -0800

Thanks for the replies.

James, I agree about the spacing. It partially has the original sidebearings of the bold weight, so I will reset those to fit the lighter weight.
And the regular font does look a bit overweight, I thought that was the case anyway, but I didn’t mention it because I was hoping someone else would. To see if it’s really the case. :) Your suggestion for making another, somewhat lighter book weight sounds like a good plan. I’ll do some experiments about what weight looks right.
And I’m quite pleased with how the Black (or Fatboy ;)) is working out. It needs more work, but I’m a sucker for black weights.

Paul: That would definitely look nice. I was just thinking about that yesterday. I think I will see what happens if I make a very thin version, by making a very quick interpolation.

make a thinner book weight

paul d hunt — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 02:45:24 -0800

make a thinner book weight that will give a more effective contrast with the bold

you know, a hairline and a thin would also be nice. :^p

’weights.pdf’ acquired.

James Arboghast — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 23:17:36 -0800

’weights.pdf’ acquired. I can’t look at this in detail until after the weekend.

First impressions:
* for the regular font the spacing looks just a little too wide and you may have to bring the side bearings in to optimize. The ideal, according to Hrant, is to have equal areas of whitespace / stroke. 50% black balanced by 50% white. But that’s an idealistic plan and I don’t believe it applies to every text font design. Getting the spacing right is matter of experimenting until you hit the sweet spot. The sweet spot for Rough Cut will be unique to its design and characteristics. The regular reads a bit too slow for me.

* The regular font looks overweight. The difference between regular and bold, for most linears like this, is usually more pronounced. Since you’ve done all the work of making the regular what it is now, consider keeping it as a robust chunky regular, and make a thinner book weight that will give a more effective contrast with the bold. The bold weight is about right so I think stick with that as is.

* Other pros please post your impressions of the above aspects to help us nail this with confidence. Chris, Nick, Carl, Dino, Anyone else with eyes.

* Fatboy is mean and chunky. Will make a great display variant, ideal for vegetable soups, magazine covers, car insurance ads, vehicle signage, and a heap of other stuff too.

j a m e s

Rough-cut sans, up for crits.

Quincunx — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 07:42:09 -0700

This is a design I’ve been working on for the last two weeks. I think it’s my third more serious attempt at designing a typeface. It’s still in the early stages. I have drawn first versions of the lowercase characters. There is no kerning yet, I kerned some pairs a bit by hand when I set the specimen.

I would like to have some crits at this point. The ’s’, ’v’, ’w’, ’y’ and ’z’ are the characters that trouble me the most, I have difficulties with getting those to fit well with the style of the design. But all tips are welcome. :)

Check the PDF for larger size.