I was just on the internet watching videos when I stumbled accross a video that was about a guy talking about something called the "ClockClock 24". I looked this up and I kid you not: it is a 24 hour clock made of smaller Analog clocks. When I saw this I was like, "only if you were able to make it display letters...", and then I thought, "I could do that".
And thats how this monstrosity was born.
Plum Blossom
My only entry for the Fontstruct Color competition, consisting of 38 tile designs for the Chinese game of Mahjong (+ tile back).
I underestimated how big of an undertaking this was going to be, but luckily I managed to curb my perfectionism and get most of the tiles done with designs I'm satisfied with. The Chinese characters were traced from images on Wikimedia Commons (1, 2) and then modified to fit my taste, the space on the tile, even out stroke width and so on. Hopefully they turned out looking good and legible, as I'm not at all familiar with the system. The rest of the designs were freehanded.
The font is named (for now) after my favorite of the designs - the plum Flower Tile, one of the last I drew. (mapped to 'w')
Character Mapping
This font uses two mappings for each of the tiles, to the following Unicode character sets:
Mahjong Tiles (U+1F000 ... U+1F02F)
All tiles are represented except for the four Season Tiles and Joker (U+1F026 ... U+1F02A)
Basic Latin
Coins suit: a to i
Bamboo suit: A to I
Charaters suit: 1 to 9
Dragons: | (Red) 0 (White) # (Green)
Winds: ^ (N) v (S) > (E) < (W)
Flowers: w (Plum) x (Orchid) y (Chrysanthemum) z (Bamboo)
Tile Back: *
Possible Future Updates
I'll probably be taking a break from Fontstruct for a while, but some ideas for future improvements could be:
- Change name
- Add four Season tiles
- Add Joker
- Redesign 1 Bamboo tile (Current one based on a design from this article. It was easiest to replicate but doesn't really fit the rest of the set)
- Add character mapping to Chinese chars.
- 3D Isometric view of the tiles
Extra Links
"How Do I Know if my Mahjong Set is Complete?" from mahjongtreasures.com was helpful.
Also this YouTube video from Accented Cinema provided an interesting look into the culture surrounding the game.
Thanks for reading. Feedback will be appreciated!
Gob Pixi is an amalgamation of different experiments with colour, display type and visual effects throughout the years of working with a comfortable, personal design palette.
Having been obsessed with grain textures and primary + secondary colours throughout the start of 2020s, I was moved to translate that into typography after seeing Kilotype's Lofi Forest "fizzy-fying" an otherwise sharp-looking Roman/Serif.
Also, I have worked on a type project that got me to layer different coloured shadows and highlights above each other, so this is my attempt at translating that effect onto another typeface that I've shelved for quite a while now. (I happened to come up with something similar to Get Yourself Connected by chance and didn't know what to make do with it.)
ColorComp entry, inspired by the Memphis art style. I started this originally a few years ago with several color variations (using the three main colors), but I couldn't decide which ones to go with, so this sat unfinished for a while. In the end I decided to go with this.
This is a cloneA modular colour font inspired by toy bricks and soft plastic textures, suggested to use in large sizes.
This is a clone of Ambrose ColorLessons in Composition, Vol. 1
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Less of a typeface and more of a concept, Lessons in Composition, Vol. 1 (LC,V.1) was a fun experiment with a compossion based typeface and negative space. Strictly geometric, each character in LC,V.1 is made out of rectangles, circles, curves, and the subtraction of these shapes.
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Notes:
LC,V.1 is set in #f90000 (red) and #2a2a2a (slightly off black). All of the white space is transparent.
A font that tries to mimic the anaglyph effect that makes images appear 3D. Red and blue are the most common colors for this technique, but green and magenta work as well. If you had the right pair of 3D glasses, this might look different.
Manufaktur
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The cyanotype was developed in 1842 by Sir John Herschel. This process, commonly used for blueprints, involved placing an object onto a surface and covering it in a solution of Iron (III) salts. Once the solution is exposed to ultraviolet light, the Iron (III) salts are converted into Iron (II) salts. After exposure, the suface is washed and the water reacts with the Iron (II) salts to form a Prussian Blue pigment that blueprints are known for.
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Manufaktur is a monospaced typeface and while it has upper and lower case letters, it is really unicase. Manufaktur is intentionally stripped of most characters, coming with only the most essential. The idea being that Manufaktur has the bare minimum, but is still functional as a typface. It was designed with the intentions to be used in a machine shop more than on a page.
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Notes:
Manufaktur is set in #002c8c, as a reference to blueprints. I had wanted to use Pantone's Prussian Blue (#003153) but it was too dark.
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Some of the stenil lines (C, J, O, Q, U, 0, and 2) were made using white bricks. I had experimented ways to get the stencil lines without using white bricks, but it looked much cleaner with them. Being a color font, you should be able to change the color of the white bricks to mach your background. It's not ideal, but it's what looked the best.
My entry for ColorComp. I will admit this isn't as good as some of my other works, and this is a bit of a derivative work, but other than that, it's pretty good.
Letters and numbers only.
Edit: HOLY CRAP MY FIRST TOP PICK!!!!!!!!
Colorless version: Tecodanthe Adet