The designer of this FontStruction has chosen not to make it available for download from this website by choosing an “All Rights Reserved" license.
Please respect their decision and desist from requesting license changes in the comments.
If you would like to use the FontStruction for a specific project, you may be able to contact the designer directly about obtaining a license.
This is my homage to the late Dutch master. I tried to capture the impossible geometry, sense of space, and even the colours of his works. You can see and download the new v2 here:
and
.
122 Comments
Hommage a Escher v2 and
Hommage a Escher v2 extLat
I've been working on this project since 21st July. It is still not complete: capitals and other characters are missing. But I couldn't wait any longer. I was also hampered by technical issues. No download possible at the moment, lost a few hours work several times after a failed saving attempt. Thus, I've made the decision to share this work as it is, and iron out the problems later.
*speechless*
There will be many twists and turns on the road to Upper Case, but you have set out on a noble path. You have done well halfling.
There are many fonts I've held back so that others could share their creations. It was something I decided after hearing that some wouldn't have shared their designs after seeing mine. Throughout the process, I've played a little game of "When is someone going to come up with this?" in regards to public releases compared to my private stash. Uncannily, within the last two months, there have been about ten fontstructions by different fontstructors that similarly match what I have unreleased, ranging from the simple to the most complex. It's an interesting thing to see. Everyone's been doing great work. I'll be sharing these typefaces soon. Your design is the most unexpected I would think to find here. Shocking, really.
This sample is from IsoMatrix, fontstructed in June, 2008.
How it ended up here as well, I have no idea.
@ geneus - i was just thinking with all this escher-inspired work being released that i'm sure geneus could do a killer interpretation. i wait with baited breath :)
@funk_king: I learned from you yesterday that some fontstructions are just way too big, and splitting them into smaller parts could be a remedy, though not totally painless. I also reported the problem to FS stuff to no avail. Frankly, I thought my project was doomed, but you saved the day. Thanks for that.
@djnippa: g was not easy. I had to increase the descender to accommodate it. The 8 is a different story. All I wanted to avoid the overused symmetrical version I could have created offhand. But I was not sure others would like it as much as I do.
@p2pnut: &, $ are third and fouth generation glyphs respectively. That means I deemed the previous versions unworthy to include in this first release. My favourite is the * (asterisk). The ß (eszett) also came out very nicely. It preserves the fusion of the long s and a lower case roman s.
The ø from the Danish and Norwegian alphabet gives a new dimension to the stroke.
@geneus1: Well, I don't know what to say. IsoMatrix has an apparent resemblance to my letters, especially the upper case. I have already finished the sketches of those too, and
I'm not going to change them just for the sake to be different. But the full history of this Escher-inspired design goes back to June 2003. Shortly after I saw the book "The Magic of M.C. Escher", the Belvedere, Man with Cuboid, and Waterfall in it, I started to do some drawings of 3D letterforms using cubes as pixels. But I made only a few letters back then. A couple of years later I started to work on this project again, and developed the optimal x-height to avoid the common hexagonal look of the rounded letters. I used Illustrator and simple colours for the different sides, but I could not convert the glyphs to B&W to make them acceptable to the font editor (TypeTool). The advent of FS suddenly opened up new possibilities. It was actually one of your works, Bevelicious, (and Bevel by minimum) that inspired me the most showing what FS was really capable of in the right hands. Had you published IsoMatrix before, it might have discouraged me to work on a similar project. It also might have had a strong influence on my work, too strong perhaps. On the other hand I should thank you for the inspiration of Bevelicious, and you should thank minimum for sharing Bevel with the FS community. Personally, I don't think that having a completed work in the drawer is of much use. It is as if it never existed. And consider the ephemeral lifespan of the average font. So, publish or perish, as the saying goes.
I wonder, why was my design so unexpected to you. The core idea of this paradox geometry preceded Escher, who saw it in earlier works. But he took it to artistic level by populating those dimensions with buildings, human figures and everyday objects. He also greatly improved the concept of using the laws of perspective in such a peculiar way so as to cheat the human eye. Likewise, the typographic idea has been circulating around for quite a while in logotype, pixel art, or even Flash
designs. It's not a surprise, that several people come up with the same idea, since we humans use the same hardware, our brain, our neural networks to create. The near simultaneity of same ideas could be explained by the zillions of visual stimuli raining on us every second, shaping our thoughts, capturing our imagination. Every historical period has a set of stimuli, call it style, trend or fashion. There is a lot of cross-pollination of ideas going on eversince the Web opened the floodgates of information. So it is not a question of IF, but WHEN an idea is to resurface again.
Yes, the size limit. Splitting one huge FontStruction into two or more smaller ones is a temporary work-around. We have plans to implement copy&paste between FontStructions, and we might be able to increase the size limit handled by the font generator. So there is hope to see Hommage a Escher in its full glory at some point. :-)
I have one little comment on the design: the horizontal bar of the t - did you try making it go up instead of down?
I can only imagine the patience involved, so I hope you take my humble suggestion from a very friendly perspective, Mr Baggins:
If the middle bars (I mean the downside of the p's belly, the upside of the b's belly or the inner loop of the e, etc) would actually touch the main bar, then the form would truly be an impossible 3d figure.
Just give it a thought on my behalf.
You still get a tener from me, for the quality of visual impact is neatly rendered.
It is a matter of preference: I wanted my letters to be aesthetically pleasing even at the cost of 3D effects.
I have the same Escher book and have been an amazed admirer for years. Thanks for the kudos on Bevelicious. The release of that fontstruction was meant to pay homage to minimum, who created the shading effect. Just as Framestore pays respect to Funk_King, Glossierre to Williaum, and Slink to afrojet and saberrider.
Re: "completed works in the drawer." They're not so much complete. But yeah, it's like the proverbial tree falling in the forest. But is something being heard via the creative manifestation of other fontstructors? ;-) Personally, it feels like working out in the gym when there's nobody there. No one sees, but I still reap the benefits of the workout. But I think I'm done now. Pursuing influences "too strong" sounds intriguing. Although, holding back was something done with community in mind by allowing others to have their own "Aha!" moments. It gives others the opportunity to discover new techniques internally, which can be more meaningful than having something told to you externally. It was also to satisfy a curiosity in creative synchronicity, while bypassing the ego fulfillment of being the first one to release a particular fontstructed style or technique.
Creative synchronicity happens everywhere and in anything since creativity comes from the same source. It's been seen here on Fontstruct several times. It takes a certain level of technical acumen and perspicacity for it to happen in complexity. I was going to go into a long treatise in Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's creativity and flow theory, but I'll stick to publishing fonts. The question to publish I wrestle with now is whether it is free or for a fee. I think this is a design worthy of professional consideration. I feel a growing number of fontstructions surpass competitive retail fonts in originality and design. I wonder how top fontstructors feel about that.
Re: unexpectation. For me, your design was unexpected mainly because of the difficulty and complexity required - in concept, time, as well as execution. Most wouldn't take up the time requirement to work at such a large scale, struggling with size proportions, brick conforming and angular alignment, etc. The number of characters you produced was impressive as well. It was also unexpected coming from you in regards to the type of work you've shared. Going from producing very clean text faces to a full-out shaded isometric 3D design is like a quantum leap. A great display of versatility. I actually thought Funk_King would delve into it first as an automatic progression from his Tesselation and Molecular series, which had the foundations of the 3D structure. This comment is turning into a novel, so I'll end it here and get back to fontstructing. Hearty applause to you for developing and sharing this homage.
@geneus - enjoyed your treatise :) i do so enjoy reading these comments from our more erudite fontstructors. it makes it seem like i'm doing much more important work than just playing with bricks :) bottom line - frodo7 is one badass. but then, so are you.
Geneus, I have heard of this book "Flow" before. Now you've piqued my interest and I will look for it.
Good type.
Hommage à Escher LC1
Hommage à Escher LC2
This is a nice font, not even finished yet, but to put it on the top of a list, 1700+ strong, of selected beauties, looks clearly unrealistic. I would even go so far as to say it doesn't make any sense at all. There are so many brilliant works, Top Picks, Hidden Gems, or yet undiscovered gems, as well as long forgotten ones, that would have had deserved more exposure. This situation, sometimes refered to as the ivory tower effect, is a result of the Reality Distorsion Field of the current rating system. There is very little we can do about. I would even question of the whole concept of measuring and quantifying artistic performance (see Mr. Keating's point on the idea of mathematical literary criticism, Dead Poets Society, a 1989 film starring Robin Williams).
One tiny detail, however, that burns me, is that the changing of places was not achieved by giving more high votes for other fontstructions. Oh no! It was merely done in the last two-three days by adding a few low votes to HàE resulting in a sudden drop of 0.2 of average rating. For a long time this font had no lower rating that 8. Now the chart looks more like Barad-dûr accompanied by the plateau of Gorgoroth. Think about it. It's a lot more effective way to manipulate the ratings with just a few votes.
I wonder if we could do anything to stop the corrupt minds, who think the Top Pick rating is a value above all values including morals.
stationary features of the front page, serving as inspirational guidance to benefit the whole FS community.
@minimum: The Top Pick and the rating system have some practical use, but only in a special frame of reference. These kind of systems were invented and introduced to sort a large number of items and to give a rough guidance of their relative value (e.g. Pop charts, Amazon.com book ratings, stock ratings). For most fontstructions, mainly the doodles, that's fine. For the top 5-10% that reach the artistic level it is meaningless. Imagine to visit the Louvre in Paris, or the Uffizi in Florence and find the paintings and sculptures sorted and
displayed in the following order: 1. Mona Lisa by Leonardo, 9.999 points; 2. La Madonna di San Sisto by Rafaello, 9,998; 3. David by Michelangelo, 9.997, so on and so forth.
I also wrote a short opinion on why are so few votes. Here is an excerpt:
The more votes, the better – I agree with this principle, and any measure that increase the voters turn up is positively welcome. However, we also know (at least since the Bush vs. Al Gore case, 2000) that many people simply do not vote. They walk into the boot and cast an empty ballot. Or they just stay at home. (A clear case for FS “under-vote”: when someone leaves a comment but gives no rating.) An under-vote or a no-vote is very informative. It could tell that
a) people just can’t make up their mind, because too little information is given about the artwork;
b) they don’t know how to vote: no clear guidance was given as to what count as 1,2,3,…10.
c) they don’t trust the system;
d) they don’t belive their vote will count/matter;
e) they think it’s too much fuss about nothing, etc. My point is that these abstainings constitute a large body of opinion, we only have to learn how to listen to. (Blog > Adjusting the rating system, comment-648)
[Also, please remember that this service is provided for free (gratis), and we have limited resources etc. Keeping FontStruct alive and growing is a big challenge.]
Half of the glass is full. We do have several tools to encourage sharing and enable self-publishing — from the CC-licenses and the widget to the 'share' button and Twitter/Flickr integration in the live feed. Anyone can blog about his/her FontStruction(s) elsewhere — typerider and sketchbookB come to my mind as examples —, and we are always happy to tweet or blog about it. There is even a FontStruct Forum now! :-)
I understand there are frustrations here and there, but they are part of the process. Believe me, I have my frustrations here and there too. :-) But then I look at what FontStruct has achieved, and think about all the great work and great people working together here, and it fills me up with pride and inspiration. FontStruct is not the first open-source bottom-up collaborative type foundry, but is certainly the most vibrant, creative and productive one. (What a better example of the power of FontStructor, the talent of FontStructors and the wisdom of the FontStruct community than this very thread?)
edit (30/09/09): added links to blogs.
half months, a relatively brief period of time. The steady improvement of the application / service itself, and the bewildering array of new font designs are colossal achievements you can be very proud of. Fontstruct is a microcosmos with a divers ecosystem of competing and ever evolving creatures (e.g. positrolls). The FS community is a dynamic, prolific, and multicultural one showing a healthy growth, and I am very happy to be part of it. I am sorry if I expressed some impatience (part of my nature is that restless Tookish side:)), it was all for the "betterment" of FS.
Fontstruct Forum: very good tidings. I'll check it out and post my first topic. Similarly, typerider and sketchbookB sound promising.
It might still get rid of the vertical stroke effect, so just take it into consieration if you don't mind.
I also noticed recent down-votes in many other cases targeted largely the best works of fellow members. These votes have nothing to do with critique or evaluation, their only motive is malice. Fontstruct used to be a nice place with a high moral and creative spirit. Now trolls roaming around unchallenged...
To give the lowest possible rating is a grave insult in itself. I don't think I should take it without a word. I have decided not to release the second half and the new completed version of this font on FS. Are you happy now?!
There seems to be two main types who inhabit FS (excluding the occasional seeker of fonts or casual visitor).
The first are long time members, those with a genuine interest in typography and design. These are the ones who make erudite and apposite remarks about a design and who seek to help by their comments.
A more recent phenomenon is the sudden, temporary, influx of students who have been set a project. The crowd from Bristol for instance. Many of them produced work of a really high standard and generally treated FS with some respect. Currently we seem to have a batch from a school ... judging by comments that some have left, they are from an infant school ... perhaps the most responsible use of the net that they have been exposed to previously is MSN chat or Facebook.
It's a shame that their teachers/carers don't monitor the site for behaviour.
Don't worry Frodo old pal ... they will soon be moving on to another project (a comb and paper orchestra perhaps) and we will be left with the hardcore of people who actually care about design.
I also noticed this font works well with Latin text.
I'm just making the finishing touches on the new, revised version. The problem is it's too big (again) to fit in a single fontstruction.
This & the fact that Hommage à Escher is an indirect (or maybe direct) factor in the improvement of the FontMortar.
So as I'm happy that this baby is finally fully downloadable & I congratulate you, Sr. Bolsón, I also believe a big couple of thums up go to Sr. Meek & everybody over at FS.
And everything is looking fine.
I can't get over it.
Other FontStructors could pay to have their particular font(s) show up as placeholders until the real FontStruction is finally generated! (Similar to mandatory advertising before watching a video clip.)
:^) :^) :^)
Hommage à Escher v2
Hommage à Escher v2 extLat.
i just got here last night. how do i make a second test font? i was just messing around and made a couple of letters that are not so great and i want to start a new test.
help, please? i can't seem to find a way to reach the live chat section so i had to find a comment box, sorry.
@Bismuth: To see all glyphs, select "All Letters" from the View menu (bottom right corner at the preview), and then select "Full screen". Depending on the resolution of your computer's screen, you can see most of the letters with little scrolling.
Different shades: one side is solid black, one is vertically striped, and one is checkered. You can see the patterns in detail if you magnify the letters. Use the Zoom tool, or click the PXL button while holding down the Shift key.
This is the first, the original version of HáE. If you want to visit the new extended version, there are two links provided in my very first comment.
@ladyfur: Thank you for your comment. There is no live chat section on Fontstruct. We've got Fontstruct Live, a collection of recent comments on different fonts organized in temporal sequence. Perhaps, the best way to start is to take an existing fontstruction you like, and modify it. There are quite a few fontstructions you can clone, study, and modify, just look for the "Clone" button below the preview window. Good luck.
Hommage a Escher v2 and
Hommage a Escher v2 extLat.
I can remove it from Mediafire if you wish.
http://www.mediafire.com/file/hm9w9d3dr5njc89/hommage__escher.zip
Hommage à Escher V2 Combined
All my compliments!
http://martinascott.wordpress.com/
...you have also had 157 downloads from the link I set up. You may want to put it in your description section.
Gray Scale
I see that this has a Noncommercial-No Derivative Works license – is there any possibility of this font being used for commercial purposes (for example, for use in a logo?)
10/10
BRASSART
amazing
Love it! That dollar sign twists the mind
Your look at this!
could you add "ñ"
Please sign in to comment.