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Ardbeg
Posted by matteson in
22 Aug 2003 — 4:51pm
22 Aug 2003 — 4:51pm
This is the latest thing I've been playing with - off and on in whatever spare time I can find. It's the first Latin sans I've attempted that's not a heavily geometric construction, so any input would be great. I was trying to throw some slight corners into certain characters (o, e, c, etc.) to open up the counters a bit. And have been playing with small flares and tapers on various letters. Not sure if either one is working to anyone's great satisfcation. "vent" is just a detail - and Ardbeg is just a whisky - the face is nameless as of yet. No upper case or figures yet either... 
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27 Feb 2004 — 9:42am
> with so many weights, and Nathan's particular design,
> it should be possible to do both quite well.
I was talking about a single font - different weights can certainly be tuned more for either text or display... but not both.
> Gerard Unger has introduced a new 'Big Vesta'
How silly of him.
hhp
23 Apr 2004 — 10:44am
At the risk of waking a sleeping dog, I thought I'd post again to this thread. I've been fooling around with the italics for this face [finally] and I'm at a point where I could certainly use some input.
Originally I intended to make the italic companion more 'cursive' that what I've ended up with. The cursive forms just didn't seem to make sense when paired with the roman. So, instead, I've gone (1) lighter, (2) narrower, & (3) slightly looser. Hoping that that's enough to differentiate it from the roman.
The slope is somewhat slight : about 5%, though I've taken Hrant's advice to others and used a slope of 1/11. Italic caps have [obviously] less work done on them. Slope is much less at 1/28 (about 2%). Caps are heavier than the lower case—perhaps much too heavy—and wider. At this point they're just the roman slanted.
Also, the letterfit is tighter than before.
040423.pdf (43.4 k)
23 Apr 2004 — 11:56am
I don't know about the looseness. If you're having trouble making the italics stand out I'd rather see [more] lightness, or maybe a steeper slope (like 1/8, a nice power-of-two invert). You might even make the x-height slightly smaller.
> .... a slope of 1/11
Cool.
Now you know that for every 11 units you move vertically you need to move 1 unit horizontally, and maintain the exact slope angle. Note that your vertical proportions should ideally be multiples of 11!
> 1/28
That seems a bit low - the slant might disappear at lower resolutions. You might try 1/16.
hhp
23 Apr 2004 — 12:00pm
Thanks Hrant. Is there a reason for the power of 2 preference? I.e., does it make a difference for output, or make the maths more efficient, etc.?
23 Apr 2004 — 12:12pm
Not really. In fact a decimal base is easier to work with during editing; like 1/10 and 1/20 might be better here. I'm just a binary boy, that's all. On the other hand, powers of 2 are:
1) easier to halve.
2) in tune with TrueType's "ideal" Em values; like an Em of 1024 or 2048 will actually render [marginally] faster in the TT engine. On the other other hand: you can still use the talus (internal leading) to pad decimal proportions to a binary "frame"; for PS fonts (at least the ones output from Fog) an Em of 1000 is required - and that's decimal.
hhp
23 Apr 2004 — 3:36pm
Hi Nathan.
This is shaping up to be a useful addition. Surprised at how small it sets. Lots of internal leading going on. 11 looks like 9. Looks good, but I might scale everything up 10%.
Some general comments:
I think the lc italic is working fine. The upper has issues as you mention. It is much too dark. I tend to like caps that match the lc color very closely. To that end even your Roman caps look dark to me. Also, I'd add a touch more slant to the Italic caps (could just be the dark color that's over-emphasizing it)
Specifics:
W: Not digging the crossing. It makes a huge black spot. Maybe in a titling version, or the light, but here it's too much IMHO.
v,w: Watch for optical illusions in the stress. Looks left heavy.
w: Looks dark.
Q: Thin the tail join
F: Drop the crossbar a hair lower than the E
S,s: Not digging the curves. The spine looks like he broke his back in 2 places. A bit less abrupt, but keeping the corner?
d: Consider reversing the cut angle on the stem for uniformity.
!: Looks dark.
Cheers,
Randy
24 May 2004 — 4:49pm
Nathan, Congratulations on winning the TDC competition with this typeface. Well deserved!
24 May 2004 — 4:59pm
Many congrats, Nathan!! Onward and upward.
BTW, I'm curious: did you submit anything else?
hhp
25 May 2004 — 9:58am
Thanks guys. I kinda submitted this on a whim, Hrant. I'm working on a few more projects (a serif text face, another Thai bitmap, a Renner revival for a friend, etc.) but at this point I hate them all. So maybe - if I don't spend all my time obsessing over this face - I'll have something else for this year's competition.
25 May 2004 — 10:15am
>if I don't spend all my time obsessing over this face
I would hope that having received such an honor one or more of the founderies would want to buy it and pay you to obsess over it!
25 May 2004 — 11:18am
>would want to buy it and pay you
Ahhh. My dream...to be paid for this ;-)
Perhaps I could find more time then. While I was at Jim Rimmer's press and foundry, I realized just how slow I work. I've been slogging on this for 9 months, and I still hate the cap 'S', and don't have finished italics :-/
Not to mention spacing, kerning, etc.
25 May 2004 — 12:26pm
>My dream...to be paid for this
You have a pretty damned impressive calling card with this award. If they don't come to you, you could go to them, very proudly.
22 Oct 2003 — 3:04pm
This is really nice. I really enjoy the almost tactile qualities of these letters. I wonder if it the fact that my eyes are telling my brain that someone carved these, causing the tactile stimulus.
Should the 'y', 'j' and 'g' end so abruptly? I'm comparing them to the 'b', 'd', 'p' and 'q'. Should the 'f' have more at the top? I'm almost visually seeing an upside down 't'.
Love the 'Q'!
26 May 2004 — 9:02am
Winning this award groups you with some of the heavy hitters, you should be proud! Congratulations.