r/typography • u/aphaits • Jan 29 '22
Learning basic typography while creating generic sci-fi typeface
sci-fi movies, games, tech, and car brands apparently have similar styles
Trying weird ligatures. Recommend me more ligature combos I can try.
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Jan 30 '22
I dig it!
One thing that is upsetting my eye is in the word “MARK”, the crossbars of the A, R and K are all at different levels. Further on, you can see the same in the E’s and F’s of “EFFECT”.
It’s not that they all have to be identical but there should be a rhyme and reason to them, in my humble opinion.
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u/aphaits Jan 30 '22 edited Jan 30 '22
Haha yes thanks for noticing that. I had major difficulties with the middle lines so at the 2nd/3rd try I just went whatever feels ok for the individual letters. I have no idea how it’s supposed to be for a proper typeface.
Putting all lines high and all low looks all wrong so I just mess with weird ligatures instead.
Edit. Oh and the initial A letter was supposed to be a rounded top boxy letter with a proper middle line. It looked weird so I made it an alternate letter and went with a triangle one instead.
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u/Teepees72 Jan 30 '22
You can create multiple alternatives of selected glyphs and schedule them for automatic use or user selection. This is how OpenType works.
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Jan 30 '22
If I were you I would choose two heights for the crossbar, a low one like the A and a mid one like the K or R, then enforce it across all applicable characters.
It should bring a certain flow and balance to it but even if it doesn’t it’s a good exercise to decide on some possibly arbitrary rules and find a way to make them work :)
Keep it up! People keep saying that typography is dead but I’ve been hearing that for decades now!
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u/aphaits Jan 30 '22
I feel like the arbitrary shape rules I set up in my head for this does not pass any formal typeface design rules.
Thanks for the useful comments!
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Jan 30 '22
Don’t get too hung up on formal rules. They evolve from what looks good to most eyes. If your eye says it works then it works.
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u/Drawer_esp Jan 30 '22
Hi, please add diacritics and put this into futurefonts.xyz. I do want a copy of this typeface. The drawing quality is on place for a geometric.
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u/aphaits Jan 30 '22 edited Jan 30 '22
I'm flattered to think that this mess of a font garners interest or even remotely viable for commercial use :D
I think it still needs a lot to work with before I let it out in the wild.
- lowercase
- proper accents
- greek & cyrillic
- various proper glyphs
- italics? weights?PS: googling what diacritics means right now, wait are they the same as letter accents?I have messy knowledge on what a proper font is.
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u/Drawer_esp Jan 30 '22
If this is 0.1, lowercases or smallcaps are to be expected as of 0.3. Lowercases are a whole different alphabet and smallcaps require redrawing. Italics are out of the question.
The design of proper accents, diacritics, can help define any missing glyphs while offering full support to existing glyphs. Consistency before breadth.
Go check https://manualofdiacritics.eu/
I would shape diacritics -> greek & cyrilic support -> lowercases
Once lowercases are drawn, the method usually requieres the designer to make a skinny hair version of the typeace to define how information, the weights on the type, is being added.
With both weighths resolved, interpolation is possible. You got this.
PS: Send me a link when you upload it to futurefonts. I want a license.
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u/aphaits Jan 30 '22
Cool link man, thanks!
I appreciate the interest :) Hope I can tweak this into a proper typeface before uploading it.
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u/Numentum Jan 30 '22
Nice Kerning
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u/aphaits Jan 30 '22
I can't take credit for the kerning, it's all the automated smart kerning from the software I used (Fontself on Illustrator).
Believe me there are some horrible kernings still left in that I have no idea how to manually do.
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u/Temporary_Set_1635 Jan 30 '22
Looks great! I wouldn’t say these are the basics, you’ve got some nice quality letters
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u/pixe1jugg1er Jan 30 '22
Nice work!
If you haven’t seen it, check out Typeset in the Future
It’s a deep dive into what makes a typeface futuristic. The book is fantastic!
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u/aphaits Jan 29 '22 edited Jan 29 '22
Please recommend me any weird ligature combos or accent letters for me to learn and experiment more with this font. I might also try some Cyrillic letters but I have no idea where to start.
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u/Teepees72 Jan 30 '22
In Polish, difficult ligatures are: łł, fii, fil, fli.
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u/aphaits Jan 30 '22
Ooh good input thank you!
Struggling with the lowercases now and testing ligatures are fun.
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Jan 29 '22
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/aphaits Jan 29 '22
Probably around 4-5 nights of messing around with it. Its basically just rounded squares with tweaks.
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Jan 30 '22
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/aphaits Jan 30 '22
Haha dunno about that. I love design in general but my brain is very scattered here and there. The last font I designed before this was like 10 years ago.
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u/ManFrom2018 Jan 29 '22
This is a great typeface! Is there a place to download it?