Work in progress …
Planning only to track down some bugs in the FontStructor, I was suddenly struck by similarities between the random shapes I was placing on the canvas and images I had stumbled upon recently on the web – I think it was in this article in the Guardian.
The images were of Peter Womersley’s modernist design for “High Sunderland”, fashion designer Bernat Klein’s erstwhile home, near Selkirk in Scotland. I wasn’t at first drawn to the modernism, but to the promised description of the experience of living in a house which was visually so open to the outside world – although ultimately the article wasn’t especially enlightening on that point. Later I found more extensive sources of images of the building on the web.
Working on this was the first time in quite a few years that I have been possessed by my own, earnest FontStructing rush. I was very pleased to find that the FontStructor tool still works as well and simply as it ever did – allowing for a uniquely swift and unimpeded creative progress through a set of modular glyphs.
The basic grid for each letter, based on the characteristic modules of the building, is topped by a slightly heavier bar and so slightly asymmetrical in the vertical, like the structure of High Sunderland itself, but it is essentially square and consists of six parallel horizontal bars.
In the FontStruction, the emphasis is on these crossbars – with every effort made to avoid partial horizontals and additional vertical lines, especially for the basic latin alphabet. The font is essentially unicase, with some variants in the lower case.
At one point I noticed that there are some window panels in High Sutherland which do have a single, thinner vertical divider (for sliding open presumably) so I used this for the middle legs of the M and W. After completing the initial FontStruction I also noticed in photographs of the building that there is at least one window with multiple vertical subdividers, so maybe that can form the basis for a new grid and a new FontStruction (High Sutherland B).
Things started to get fun for me when I got into the punctuation and accented letters. I saw no alternative to adding additional verticals for the hash, the percentage sign and some other glyphs.
I really like the percentage sign, although I’m not sure how legible it is – but I guess ultimately that it is an issue with the whole font.
When it came to glyphs with unavoidable diagonals – such as the slash glyphs – I went for a stepped approach, which I think is basically a good one, maintaining the emphasis on horizontal lines, and suggestive of musical notation – but the steps are a bit sloppy. I probably need to revisit them.
I’m not sure about applications for this FontStruction. Maybe it would be useful to someone intending to erect their own mid-modernist dwelling in the hills, or to someone planning to put up some new shelves!
Pixel prototype of a font for an upcoming game being developed by yours truly. This will likely be used, but only for flashbacks and dreams. The normal ingame font may be a high-res version of this, or something different - tests are still being done to determine this.
English only for now, as there are no plans to localize the game myself.
"Madufaros" = "daughter of Madu".
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Original size: 9pt (use multiples of this size for pixel perfect rendering)
Version 1.1 - Added Polish.
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A font for times when Immersive Mode is turned off. This is used for documents and signage within the Euphedoran Extradimensional Research Institute situated in Euphedora, Greater Azwelkeland, Planet Ashr within ESOSVM.
EERI is known for Fengmiao Fukota, Salva Dheen and Triste Marinan, three of ESOSVM's most-learned and chronologically oldest AI characters. The lattermost of these is often consulted (through a software called MIDAS) for analysis which I use to improve the readability of certain fonts.
I decided to make a design which incorporated the thinnest/lightest weight lines possible in FontStruct. This is the result; I'll add more if people like it.
These 1/32 lines cannot be accurately nudged, so a unique line has to be built for each vertical position where I want a line. These lines also cannot be centered on a place where two curves meet (such as the middle of B or R). This introduces some unintentional asymmetry to the design, but I like it, so I'll keep it.
There is also the problem that forming a diagonal line of the same line weight is nearly impossible. While angled 1/32 lines can be formed, their angles are all close to 0. No method exists for making a line which slants at 45 degrees while also being 1/32 weight. So, I had to make some thicker lines in certain areas. I don't think they detract from the design, but if you scrutinize this enough, you'll notice them.
A fusion between Roman-style text and pixel art - the sort of font that might have existed in old 80s font software. It's fairly wide and verbose and is something of a colossus among pixel fonts.
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Original size: 13pt (use multiples of this value for pixel perfection)
The same simple thing, now with more characters.
I thought it was a good idea to make this.
(I also thought it was a good idea to correct the spacing in the lowercase "j")
This is a clone of Nokia 6000 series MediumVersion 1.5
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3x3 slab serif. This is based on Wallerton, Anachronistic Gunslinger, an IRC-based "TV show" which I used to write and produce. All the characters in the show were my AIs pretending they were cowboys.
Well, I managed to successfully produce a lowercase for this one!
Recommended: Use with kerning.
A fan request. This is Minecraft's in-game text font, truncated to fit into a smaller grid and then edited for consistency.
Feel free to use this for your fan games / mods / whatever! :D
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Original size: 6pt (use multiples of this value for pixel perfection)