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Elrond is the wise and powerful Elf-lord of Rivendell in The Lord of the Rings.
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Info:Created on Sun, 8th March. Last edited on Thu, 19th March.
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License:All Rights Reserved. No download available.
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17 Comments
I created this Latin set for fun. Using elements of the Tengwar script, I designed the whole alphabet. I tried to preserve the original look as much as possible while maintaining legibility. The capitals are heavily adorned with diacritics. The samples look OK, but kerning will significantly improve the text flow.
It's a work in progress.
10/10. I like it a lot. Yet I think without loosing much of legibility, it could be more rounded, or lets say more "uniform" what the terminals goes, to get closer to original look. Or maybe the contrast of the pointy lambda like characters m, k against round u and n could be altered somehow, maybe even closing the v and w bit more in the y style. Im just speculating aloud, before I try my own take on elvish style latin my self.
i have no idea why i have this but i guess its fitting here
I've made a lot of small changes. The m, t, and z have been redesigned. I created new capitals for I, J, L, S, and T. The extended Latin set nearly covers all Western alphabets.
@Peter (Petruuccio): Thank you for your comment and generous rating. I'm still considering your suggestions to make the terminals more uniform and get closer to the original look. I replaced the lambda-style m and gave the z a ball terminal. I could give the new m ball terminals too, but then I have to redesign the h, n, and u the same way for consistency. That would seriously affect legibility and ruin the uncial elements. Well, typeface design is about small decisions and compromises to achieve balance and harmony.
PS.: It is great that we could discuss minute details of fonts without existential angst. That is a luxury of having spare time and peace.
Beautiful work. It translates really well to Latin.
@four: thank you for your kind words. I wrote a short note about how the Tengwar-to-Latin translation was formulated.
Design notes for Elrond (Latin)
Elrond (Latin) is not a typical fantasy font. The design is derived from my earlier Elrond Tengwar typeface (2009) and its diacritic supplement (2021). When adapting the style to the Latin alphabet, I preserved the structural logic and visual language of Tengwar. The letterforms are constructed from Tengwar primitives: vertical stems, curved bowls, hooked terminals, and floating diacritic dots. These elements are recombined to form Latin letters while maintaining the stroke logic and rhythm of the Tengwar script.
Where Tengwar structures could not directly express certain Latin letters, I turned to uncial letterforms to fill the gaps. The uncial script shares its visual DNA with Tengwar, making it a natural bridge between the two. The result is a hybrid alphabet that feels organic and consistent.
Special attention was also given to diacritics, which integrate naturally with the letterforms and echo Tengwar-style vowel marks. The goal of the project was to create a readable decorative typeface that evokes the aesthetic of Elvish manuscripts.
@Frodo7 I like the changes. When trying to play and derive from your cloneable source font, I somehow could not edit about first half of the glyphs and so far did not find out why. So I tried to play with curved bricks, instead of pixels, but stumbled upon the mentioned distinction between closed and opened glyphs, like b vs h, a vs u etc. I was also wondering how would work the archaic long s, but I guess that the ligibility would suffer, as wast majority of people never seen that glyph yet. Do you plan to eventually make this font downloadable sometime?
@Peter (Petruuccio): I changed the license for Elrond (Supplement); you can now clone it. I know there is a glitch that makes some letters untouchable (in the original Elrond): you can't select, modify, copy or erase them. It's a mystery or some Elvish magic.
Considering the many design options, I have already cloned this fontstruction for further experimentation. I guess that is called a fork in crypto terms. That version features large Latin capitals. Currently, it serves as a dumping ground for discarded glyph versions.
Elrond (Latin) is intended for sale. I'll develop it by adding more language support, proper kerning, and OpenType features (stylistic alternates, terminal forms, decorative swashes). It has the potential to become popular among Tolkien fans and RPG developers.
Great "Latinization," Maestro. I wonder if other capital letters, like S and T, would be possible...
@elmoyenique: Thank you for your comment. As I mentioned above, I have a second version with large capitals. I only made a few letters so far. They are positioned above the baseline like other Latin capitals.
There are some very nice curves in these pixelated glyphs, like the top right of the f and the leg of the k and the backwards sweep up of v and w and the whole y and so many more. I don't know what the significance of the diacritical marks is though.
Although the a of the @ looks nice but for historical accuracy,I would have preferred t e regular one story a there.
This is the kind of typeface that I like staring at for extended period of time just because I like the shapes.
@thalamic: Thank you for your comment. The diacritical marks (mostly triple-dot clusters) are decorative elements on the "capitals" that echo the original Tengwar script.
@: The regular a would not fit into the circle.
could you make the circle bigger?
I think thalamic meant making a single story a that is the same size as the current one in the at sign.
@elliqvl: Yes, everything is possible. The current circle height equals the x-height + ascender by design. I don't think a larger circle would look any better.
@Bryndan W. Meyerholt: Before this version, I tried one with a single story a; it looked cumbersome. Likewise, the æ was unrecognisable. So I've created the double story a for both. They are less consistent with the set, but at least they look good.
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