Circle Cult

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by Tobias Sommer (shasta)

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Thought I might just also join the party of 2.0 curves. This is based on an attempt to come as close as possible to a perfect circle, trying to beat Gene in the competition for the most accurate circle before he pumps out another of his miracles...;) The "o" of this font is in that respect my entry to the competition. Just made it into a whole lowercase set for fun...

I suggest everyone who has his own circle for the competition somewhere in a font, tags it with "circle competition". Absolute accuracy shouldn't be the only criteria; if you manage to get an accurate circle on a small grid size, it should be rewarded as well. Mine has a 20 pixel stroke width and a 116 diameter, so I'm sure smaller solutions are also possible.

Due to its pretty large grid size this is getting dangerously close to the limits of the preview widget, so be patient when previewing it.

By the way: djnippa's swiss army knife of composite bricks came in very handy here. Thanks!

32 Comments

Comment by Tobias Sommer (shasta) 5th june 2010
There are by the way some weird patterns showing up in the downloaded version... Looks like the FontMortar is somewhat fed up with high-res grids.:)
Comment by Tobias Sommer (shasta) 5th june 2010
I've run out of superlatives!
Comment by thalamic 5th june 2010
Nicely done and very well executed.
Only one I'm not keen on is the s.
I think you try to make out of two smaller and tighter circles.

I'm glad the "All Composites saved in MY BRICKS' helped. It's such a time saver. By the way i've made an amendment to it, you should check it out.
Comment by djnippa 5th june 2010
A worthy contender for the 'Circle Cup' - and a beautifully designed font to wrap it up in. Yet another design that makes a mockery of awarding a mere 10.

Mind you, I'd love to see what you can come up with to improve on that s :)
Comment by p2pnut 5th june 2010
Thanks for your comments! Here's a different s... I had done a the complete set last night, saved several times while 'structing, and in the end when I quit the FontStructor it was all gone. This first set had included this s, but when I did it all again today I was simply too lazy to do it again (it is more complicated than the "ugly" one, because the middle part has to be adjusted and can't just be composed of two half-circles), but I completely agree the other s was crappy.:) I will anyway try to give much more character to this font, and include uppercase and numerals soon, but right now I just don't have the time or patience to do so.

And yes, nippa, the bricks toolbox did save me quite some time! Thanks again... I linked to it in the description now.
Comment by Tobias Sommer (shasta) 5th june 2010
I should learn to keep my mouth shut. Damn, dude. Don't you have finals to study for? ;-) This is fantastic. Superbly rendered. Love that new 's' too. Although the z may be a little 'bulgy' for me. Stylistically stunning. What's weird is that I have a similar font sketched out on paper that was to be fontstructed if a single brick resembling a quarter-arc ever became available.

All I did was make a big letter O. Now I have to make a competing font to match this? Jeez. If I was smart, I would just give up now. Anyway, here's an early attempt at circlization on a smaller scale (40 high) created before you set out the challenge.

-I've reported the weird pattern problem you mentioned on the downloads to meek. As far as I can tell, it isn't based on the size of the grid. I think it has more to do with rendering the small quarter triangles.
Comment by geneus1 5th june 2010
Hi members of the Circle Cult, I see great things going a-round. As it seems crucial to the creation of a circle, I thought this might be an appropriate place to post a querie about an angle. (hope you don't mind Shasta ... and best of luck with the finals)

For days I have been getting brain (and talent) fatigue trying to create the angle that sits between the original two angles (see below). Any suggestions folks?
Comment by p2pnut 6th june 2010
@geneus1: Thanks, glad you feel challenged to push the limits again.;) Your Futura looks quite amazing though, and you did two very well-rendered circles on a much smaller scale than mine... As I said, I think this should be rewarded too. Also, I cheated a bit releasing my circle before my finals are over, which should give me some negative points. To sum it all up, I think we're about even right now.;)

I by the way had sketches of a font like this around too, even before I knew fontstruct. I admit it's not an extremely creative font, and probably one of the first ones you come up with when starting to play with circles and squares to built letters. So I will try to make it a bit more quirky, and give it some more personality soon, but that now will definitely have to wait till after my finals...

And I too have been deperately hoping for a quarter circle brick (or boolean cut/intersect features). I once did a negative 2x2 filter setting version, but that workaround obviously had some limits:
Comment by Tobias Sommer (shasta) 6th june 2010
And @p2pnut: Here's a little hint...;)
(Hint on the hint: I didn't draw the horizontal 1/2 division lines on purpose.)
Comment by Tobias Sommer (shasta) 6th june 2010
@p2pnut Does this help?

The colored bands show the groups of bricks needed to make each composite.
Comment by aphoria 6th june 2010
Cheers guys :) I'll have a go at them a bit later ... thanks for the help.
Comment by p2pnut 6th june 2010
Ladies and gentlemen, after extensive deliberation and experimentation, I give you --- the most perfect circular O in FontStruct:

(The resulting font is terrible and I'm not about to show it, but as far as perfect circle goes, I think I'm done.)
Comment by geneus1 7th june 2010
Man... I should've known it. You make me wanna go sit in a corner and cry. ;)

Congratulations!

(What a pity that it's not really usable though, as it still doesn't allow for quarter circles, and is, in this respect, just a 4x4 version of the circle bricks. But still, I bow in admiration of the elegance of your solution...)
Comment by Tobias Sommer (shasta) 7th june 2010
I think the wierd patterns in the download are due to rounding errors during font generation. This can happen once you work on a really large grid, because control points need to sit on a grid in TrueType fonts and the resolution of that grid is limited. I am going to do something that will lessen the change of such errors in the future though.
Comment by Rob Meek (meek) 7th june 2010
@ aphoria & shasta: Thanks both for the angle info :)

@genius1: That certainly is a perfect circle ... and they say size doesn't matter ...
Comment by p2pnut 7th june 2010
alright, I'm not afraid to show my n00bish character... @geneus1: how did you do that "perfect circle"? I bet it involves filters. I still haven't wrapped my head all the way around using filters...
Comment by OxC0FFEE 8th june 2010
@shasta: Yeah, in order for it to be usable I'd need something like a negative circle brick that will erase all of the solid areas. -Or we could all beg meek for the quarter-arc bricks. ;-)

@p2pnut: Hehe. That was pretty much my cop out to shasta's superior circlage. I'm still investigating other means of generating bezier fakes at different grid sizes.

@meek: Thanks for the update.

@OxC0FFEE: Hint > Use 2:2 filters and nine bricks total to get the circle.
Comment by geneus1 8th june 2010
@Geneus. Nice circle, but I thought the idea was to create a circle based on straight angles? The circle you've created uses curves, which is kind of defeating the object, otherwise I could also say:
Ladies & Gentlemen I give you the most PERFECT and smallest circular O on Fontstruct.
Comment by djnippa 8th june 2010
@Geneus. Also you're circle can easily be created in Fontstruct 1.0, without any composites. I think the competition is still on. :-)
Comment by djnippa 8th june 2010
Comment by djnippa 8th june 2010
Sorry I stand corrected this is the smallest perfect O on Fontstruct:-
Comment by djnippa 8th june 2010
This is the tiniest perfect circle?
I got a even tinier one, it doesn't even take up half a brick!
Comment by TomoAlien 8th june 2010
Sorry to say but hat's the same circle, just with filters off!
Here's the tinniest one.
Comment by djnippa 8th june 2010
Doh! Let me stand corrected - mine is the smallest perfect circle outside of default All Bricks panel. =) LOL.
Comment by geneus1 8th june 2010
So frickin awesome. You've inspired me to bust out a massive grid font of my own...
Comment by Stelios Constantinides (sconstantinides) 8th june 2010
o!m!g!

i thought i was an advanced user, but sometimes i don't even dare to know what you guys are talking about.
KUDOS to everyone involved in this whole "find-fontstruct-limits" experiment!!!
Some days ago, i wasn't on FS for a couple of days, it was like visiting another site! awesome...
Comment by kix 8th june 2010
Anyone have advice on creating a circle that's larger than 2 by 2, without altering the horizontal or vertical brick size. I made many fonts at the 1 by 1, and have other portions of this particular font that need to be 1 by 1, but I need the circle to be 4 by 4. Thanks!
Comment by daprezjer 14th february 2014
Great! It slightly reminds me of the font "Abode". http://www.dafont.com/abode.font
Comment by Freetype Fonts (Aquaflame) 4th november 2014

i maked a o but its bold

Comment by winyo1127 21st july 2021

Super-hyper-meta-ultra-itty-bitty smallest possible circle

Comment by AFontAbove 22nd may 2022

Beat that! xD

Comment by AFontAbove 22nd may 2022

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