Jeremy: I must say, I'm a sucker for fonts like this that push the edges of legibilty. My suggestions would be (1) add a small vertical stroke to the 'g' (like you have on the 'u'); (2) add some sort of horizontal articulation to the 'f' so it doesn't get mistaken for an 'r'; (3) likewise with the 't' which looks like an 'l'; (4) have you considered raising the '3' and '8' so they don't fall so far beneath the baseline?

I find it pretty legible now (oddly enough), but I wonder what it'll look like when it's not in alphabetic order. E.g., the name is much harder to read than the character set - I'm not sure if that bothers you or not. And, all in all, I think the numerals are harder to read than the letters.

Interesting beginning. You might be interested in a font called DS NSW - a character set constructed from chopped up numerals. If I can find a link to it, I'll post it for you.

Cheers.

Nate

ps Tim: I found that if I saved the .swf file to disk and then changed the extension (from .unk to .swf) it opened up fine.

that's fun...its like macrame/pump/Alhalf mixed and flamb

The methodology you're using reminds me of Phil Baines' font for the very first issue of FUSE, "Can you...". He researched which parts are essential for each character to stay legible. His solution was brilliant and proved to be perfectly legible in text setting, but I must add he got away with it because he used Clarendon as raw material. The big chunky serifs proved to be essential in the recognition of the character fragments.

In your case, though the type is esthetically very attractive, I fear you take it a step too far. You'll be experiencing major problems in "text setting" (I don't mean a full novel here ), because your typeface will rely too much on context for several characters to be correctly interpreted.

Apart from trying out Nathan's and Cristian's suggestions, what you could do would be to look at each character separately, be real hard on yourself and ask yourself: if I really want to read this character "wrong", what part is missing that allows me to do that? Then you go back and try to find that distinctive detail that makes your f an f and not an r.

Nate, I don't know which font you mean with DS NSW, but Designers Republic once made a brilliant face made up entirely of cut-up "8"s. It is featured in "their" issue of Emigre Magazine.

> perfectly legible in text setting

But not at all readable. And he probably realized that, deciding to help the illusion along by renaming the font from the tentative "Can you read me?" to the decisive "You can read me"...

hhp

The DSOS1 book/CD is very fun! I drove myself nuts for 2 days after I got it, playing games to "win" access to fonts. Then I kept playing because I wanted to get the highest score in the world. It's as addictive as Space Invaders ever was. Although not all the fonts are the most useable, there are some really well-done modern types, including some yummy layered designs. And there are all kinds of little digital treasures and clever experiments to enjoy. Plus, the DS crew has a sense of humor about their work - it's a refreshing contrast to the "you-must-take-me-oh-so-seriously" design crowd.

I like the look of this, but would definitely need to see it in a text setting. I do have a few suggestions that might help readablity, though:

1. switch the 4 and the y. I think the curved descender would work much better with the letter, maybe mirror it so that it curves away to the left.

2. maybe turn the numerals into text figures... keep the three. drop the 1, 4, 5 and 7 (adding something to the 7). raise the 8. rotate the 6 and 9 CCW and give them an ascender/descender respectively.

3. dropping the 1 and 5 might help distinguish them from the i and s, but you still have the o and 0 as identical. There might be no help for that.

Overall, it's very cool, but you might have to break some of your boundaries to make it readable.

I fixed the Flash upload, so it won't add the ".unk" extension. Disregard this message.

Flash Dvml02_dev.swf (2.7 k)