The judges have deliberated and now it’s time to announce the results in the FontStruct “Illustration” competition for illustrative, modular typefaces.

It was especially hard work judging this time. Not only was there a record number of entries, but without the underlying coherence of an alphabet, the fonts often did not reveal their qualities at first glance. The judges needed to examine the entire character set, and look at the font at different sizes. Samples were also even more important than usual. The diversity of approaches to the brief taken by designers made it difficult to find common judging criteria, and about fourteen different entries were mentioned in the judges notes. Amazingly, despite this, three clear winners did emerge. Before we get to them, let’s review some of the other entries mentioned by the judges.

Pixel Worlds

Perhaps with half an eye on our special guest judge Kai Vermehr from eBoy, several FontStructors created pixel illustration fonts. “MI BARRIO TEPITO” by desvisible for example is a pixel sketch of the Tepito neighbourhood in Mexico City which drew praise from several jurors. It contained John Skelton‘s favorite glyph of the competition (the “j”), and Gustavo Ferreira wrote:

“I really like how he managed to encode his neighbourhood in a font using just a few glyphs. The characters are well drawn and have a lot of details and personality — it’s like a little documentary film in form of a font. The sample gives an insight into the ‘real’ world, and his (in my opinion very interesting) translation process. I also like the kind of honesty and pride expressed by the work, the fact that he chose this particular topic.”

Other pixel-oriented works included “Pixellian nights” by softhunterdevil with its haunting, inverted, pixel landscape, and Sketchbook B‘s awesome army of pixel robots “Dingbots and Monsters XL“.

Modular Portraits

Another group of entries worked within a classic illustrative genre: The facial portrait.

“Moustaches & Beards” by broti is an perfectly executed example of the art of pixel illustration. The designer’s response to community suggestions – adding, and removing(!) characters – made this entry even more special. “Indonesian Woman” by Adien Gunarta is both graphically strong and a wonderful introduction to Indonesian culture and traditional dress, while “Legendary” is a masterwork of brick-by-brick vectorization from FontStruct legend kix .

Happy Easter

A couple of designers took inspiration from the spring season. “Easter Eggs” contains 3 dozen imperfectly egg-shaped ideas, textures and patterns with bricks layed out by CMunk. “Hippity Hop” is a mad, break-dancing bunny from funk_king which I personally would love to see in animated form. In the sample above you can also see an example of Em42‘s quiet brilliance in the decoration and border FontStruction “Arancito Fleurs“. Tylo who made many of the samples for this post really enjoyed working with this design. It’s utility and beauty only becomes clear when it’s used.

FoodStructions

Some designers obviously FontStruct on empty stomachs. I imagine elmoyenique put together the hilarious “ztoasts eYe/FS” before breakfast, while “Pizza Pie” by LexKominek is for later in the day – a strong, clear and fun idea as well as a genuinely useful graphic resource, especially if you’re selling pizza!

And now to our three prizewinners.

The Winners

Third place and FontStructors’ favorite is “xe Micropolis“. What FontStructor has not dreamt of living in a city like this? In our chaotic postmodern world, how sweet to find this island of order and optimistic beauty. Well done xenophilius!

Second place goes to “Abneurone Neuroticons” by neurone error. Gustavo wrote:

“… very rich, weird, expressive, crazy alien cyborg shapes — lots of them. The samples show very well that he knows what he is doing: art!”

Congratulations neurone!

The clear winner of the competition is “Rise of the Cellphone” by anexasajoop AKA Pooja Saxena who will receive a copy of the FontBook. Gustavo wrote about the winning entry:

“A little masterpiece: well-researched and well-built, informative and useful font. I like how it is self-contained, a limited collection of existing iconic objects, like a small museum.”

The idea is very original and the designer’s illustration is quite brilliant. A great demonstration of how creating a good sample can reveal the true sense and quality of a FontStruction. Congratulations Pooja!

Winners will be contacted in the next few days, regarding prizes and sizes.

Many, many thanks once again to our judges who gave so generously of their time. Do check out their links to learn more about them and what they do.

Kai Vermehr (eBoy)
Stephen Coles (typographica, Fonts in Use)
Theresa de la Cruz (FontShop) – some great educational resources here!
John Skelton (Afrojet)
Gustavo Ferreira (hipertipo)

Looking forward to the next competition? I am!