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Hi everyone!
New to the forum, but I've been browsing around for a few days and thought I should take the plunge and post up my first font for critique. Go ahead and be honest; I'm a big girl and can take it :) I'd rather have it be right, than have my precious feelings protected.
So, without further ado, here's GiddeHand, an approximation of my own handwriting.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| GiddeHandTest.gif | 51.79 KB |
31 Jan 2011 — 6:08pm
Looks nice. I question the top of the G being so open and vertical; it almost looks like an L to me.
31 Jan 2011 — 7:48pm
Thanks!
Agreed on the G; I left it that way because that's actually how it looks when I write it, and I was starting to feel like I was tweaking the "hand" out of the handwriting. Is it really horrible, should I tweak it out anyway?
Edit: Actually, that *is* tweaked, now that I look at it. When I actually write it, it's much more open and vertical ;) So I suppose my question ought to be, should I tweak it *more*? :)
31 Jan 2011 — 8:42pm
After further reflection, that response was asinine and I apologize; of *course* you thought it needed tweaking or you wouldn't have posted the suggestion.
So in the interest of trying to *follow* the advice I asked for and was graciously given instead of "do you really think so?"-ing it, here is the result of my first attempt at tweaking that G.
I vow that I will reflect *BEFORE* I respond in the future. Thanks again for taking a look and offering your thoughts.
(Sorry for the double post; for some reason the forum doesn't seem to want to accept a second edit on the last one.)
1 Feb 2011 — 1:16am
Relax; mine is only one opinion, and it is perfectly reasonable to solicit others before doing anything. Goodness knows I don't hurry to follow every bit of advice I get.
I see how this change may be stiffening up the G and losing some of the natural look of your handwriting. To get it back, I think the curve could lean forward to that point without having to bend so much, if you see my meaning. You could try using the curve of the C as a guide.
1 Feb 2011 — 2:30am
My first thoughts were 'That's a left-handed girl', so if anybody needs that look it would be perfect. Don't start overworking it - that only leads to loss of spontaneity, and an element of 'stiffness' can start to creep in.
1 Feb 2011 — 6:32am
Thanks cerulean, I'll try that and see how it looks (I've been working on a copy in case I end up liking the original better).
Nick, everyone keeps saying that! I'm actually a right-handed girl, but I tend to really crank the paper to an angle before I write on it, so that backwards slant results. I didn't even realize I had a backwards slant until I tried to digitize it, and it was hard as heck not to try to *fix* it as I went. Which is why I was afraid to tweak much more. Thanks for the advice on overworking :)
1 Feb 2011 — 5:21pm
Another tweak on the G, I lessened the curve and leaned it forward a bit instead; I also opened it back up a tad to try to get the original feel while still making it less L-like.
1 Feb 2011 — 8:57pm
Very feminine, indeed.
It’s nice how the letters connect so naturally!
To me, your /X/ stands out a bit – even more if compared to the way you write your lc x, but who am I to judge your handwriting … :)
And, as Nick said, overworking would kill the spontaneity.
Edit: It’s funny – usually the geometry and evenness of the lines give away that it is a font. But your writing is very balanced and even in colour so it works quite well IMO.
I’m wondering if the space is slightly too big compared to ‘real’ handwriting?
1 Feb 2011 — 9:08pm
There you go, that looks great.
2 Feb 2011 — 7:58am
Thanks for the comments, Joerg. I don't really like that /X/ either ... unfortunately I didn't have any "native" samples of a capital x in all of my handwritten stuff I went through to try to get samples from before I decided to make a font -- when one knows they're writing a sample for a font, it's less natural-looking. :( I'll have to see if I can come up with one that matches the rest a little better.
Thanks cerulean! I like this version too, gonna put it into the "official" font.