ARS NOUVEAUX - Art Nouveau inspired display typeface
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A personal digital reimagination of the lettering style by "Charles Rennie Mackintosh" (1868-1928), a pioneer of the "Glasgow School of Art" and so called "Arts & Crafts" movement.
His distinctive style of lettering has been seen many revisions, revivals, reimaginations and inspired designs alike over the years, and has evolved into a broad collection of available fonts.
This basic stylistic lettering concept from Mackintosh sort-of losely funcioned as the structural guiding principle for the creation of "Ars-Nouveaux".
This FontStruction is an experimentation into creating similar flavored, but still unique letterforms within that same design framework.
First I started to layout the overall basic asymmetrical core geometry from a set of custom rectangles, half arc's and slants for each of the letters bare skeleton shape. Once I completed the full set of 36 glyphs [a/z, 0/9] These basic shaped were then further modified into more sophisticated finalized letterforms.
Caps-only, but with many alternates, accompanied by a set of ornate initials.
Hope you like it,
Cheers
This is a cloneINNERCITY — Geometric future retro display grotesque
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Geometric unicase display sans with a stylistic filled counter-like (Uc) set and monolinear 'bare-boned' geometric grotesque (Lc) set.
— Full alphanumeric dual-variant font !!
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Elmoyenique's "zenzura" (a very stylish work in it's own right, make sure to check that one as well) anyway,
His 'zenzura' font kind of struck me with a healthy fresh dose of motivation. In the past I've explored somewhat similar style designs, but none of those ever really got consolidated into the extensive and complete work Elmo delivered with his stunning zenzura.
So I decided to dig up one of my older such projects and see if this new motivational boost could turn 'half'-a-font into a complete piece.
Long story short, this update is the result of that venture.
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Where previously this project came in just one style (filled counters), with no additional glyph alternates. Basically a complete absense of the lowercase-string all together, and only very limited complementary set of symbols and punctuation marks were present. Neither did the previous version had a great deal of refinement in terms of metrics / kerning and overall horizontal distribution of type-set material. So, it was nothing more than a plain doodle of the idea I had back then, that had to be preserved for a later stage.
But being drawn into more recent projects at the time I eventually ren dry on motivation to fully finalize this I ended up publishing it in its rough state.
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ABOUT THE UPDATE:
The'bare-boned' lowercase is a somewhat futuristic geometric looking form, whereas the filled uppercase set has a strong retro vibe.
Combined in 'mixed-case' it can make a cool optional decorative style capitalization for your text. Used in isolation the two styles (Uc, Lc) both could be used as two seporate fonts, allowing stylistic text hierarchy.
In addition to the stylish retro-like, and partially filled forms I included a glyph-alternative set that strips the letterforms down to their monolinear core-geometric essence.
The design of this set is characterized by the spacious, sharp and clear appearance, that looks slightly futuristic but fashionable still.
With this new addition being the more legible and clean form of the two style sets, I placed this variation into the lowercase-string, making this the default-style for the font.
For the numerals, symbols and punctuations, I tried to remain committed to the stylish filled nature of the uppercase set.
A full alternative monolinear and 'bare-boned' numeral counterpart is located in the 'Full Width' Unicode block. Two extra weight variations for the brackets are also included for a more precise personal preference..
— And so it finally could respectably considered being a full font after all.
Thats all folks.. Enjoy !
cheers
This is a cloneBATAVIER (Pro) — Geometric display sans
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[ MEMOIR ]
Revision / revival of the geometric lettering seen on a 1916 Dutch litho poster for the Wm H. Müller & Co.'sRotterdam-London passenger service called Batavier-Line(Batavier-Lijn in Dutch) which was originally designed by Bart van der Leck(1876 - 1958).
The Batavier Line existed from 1830-1960, and was the oldest steam shipping line in The Netherlands.
[ UPDATE INTEL ]
A couple of small changes were implemented compared to v/d Leck's original lettering. Most significant is the upscaled Ampersand, but numerous other small cosmetic or optimizing modifications were made as well.
I completed the full alphabet plus numerals and included additional symbols and punctuation marks to make it a fully functional typeface. The lettering is all caps (majescule) only. Some lowercase letter locations harbour a glyph alternate uppercase form as could be seen in the original litho poster source. Another bunch of alternate uppercase forms and underlined “superior” small capital letters were located in the “Halfwidth And Fullwidth Forms” Unicode block. In addition to that it has accented Latin letters for multilingual support. Also two resized alternate forms for the Ampersand and two stylish ligatures have been included.
[ SUMMARY ]
This is actually the second revision I did for the litho lettering by v/d Leck. The first attempt was made using a (faux-) Bézier approach, resulting in a huge grid canvas (168 grid units / bricks tall monstrosity). This made it a lot of hard work to build and for some letters impossible to properly implement kerning since FS values only allows min. -10 / max. 10 of grid units for kerning.
As part of the endeavor to refurbish some of my older FontStructions STF BATAVIER was one of those that was in serious need of some overhauling as well. The problem it presented was the font's cap-height. It was actually so tall and impractical to work and / or modify, that the first revival attempt never really fully materialized beyond a basic character set.
A full glyph only fitted on screen with the FS-editor zoomed-out max. and my browser zoomed-out at 30%. At this scale not only the canvas grid lines in FS's editor all but dissapeared, but it also resulted in a down-sized brick (or 1 square grid unit) with on-screen rendering at only 3×3 pixels, as oposed to 64×64 pixels with the FS-editor's default zoom settings.
So imagine selecting a tiny 3×3 px speck when working the glyph canvas at brick level to modify glyphs... pretty much impossible. Now, the other situation wasn't a whole lot better. This had the browser's zoom restored back to 100%, making the glyph canvas at brick level “workable” again. But in respect to the cap-height this only renders a very small section of the glyph on-screen. Requiring a huge deal of additional canvas navigation in FS's canvas editor, better known as “Pan the view (H)”, which is done with the hand tool.
And well, as many of you will know, this is an absolute bummer When navigating (or panning) a glyph bottom to top requires 3 full canvas swipes.
So yeah, the only way for an extended version ever to materialize was to be rebuild it from the ground up at a much small scale, using very different measurement ratios compatible with FontStruct's kerning.
[ TECH INTEL ]
This second revision attempt successfully reduced the font's cap-height down to a comfortable 5 bricks (or grid units) tall and Em-square of 7 bricks total. Some optical compensations were implemented to certain elements such as stroke weight corrections and careful minute differences in vertical positioning of letter mid-section elements.
For now thats all Folks..
Cheers
LUCERNA — Neoclassical stencil serif
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Lucerna is a modern neoclassical stencil serif in the Didot style.
Simple & Elegant...
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Created primarily with the focus towards luxury fashion and marketing brand-oriented projects, aiming at luxurious and sophisticated design projects.
Although it’s a true and fully functional stencil, design focus wasn’t so much
concentrated around the 'functionality' part of the stencil concept. Instead it was more focussed on the stylish implementation of the concept and on making sure it looks pretty.
The stencil concept was achieved by way of stroke omissions. Some of which are large and drastic, leaving only critical parts of the stroke intact, while others are more subtle, like those detached crossbars or cuts seen in the hairlines.
Thin transitional bracketed serifs and a mixture of various sized teardrop- and pointy terminals, combined with the high stroke contrast, these make up for a sharp and interesting looking font that provokes this thoughtful stencil letter concept.
There is a lot of subtle dynamic height deviations going on, hoping to tune in to more of a lively rhythm, and introduce some playful characteristic properties.
Minute changes to optimize optical performance have also been implemented, such as overshoots. The relative low cap-height makes up for a somewhat short and stocky uppercase quality. Its accompanied by a relatively tall x-height that results in a fairly large lowercase size. Due to the lower cap-height of the font, the short ascenders parts of the lowercase letters still exceed above the Cap-Line, preserving some of that otherwise lost white space, improving legibility.
The design's missing segments and various random detached bits 'n pieces aren't as functional in smaller sizes. Making it harder to read or distinguish detached letter elements from puntuation marks. So it is best used for display purpose.
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A small number of glyph alternative forms are included as well:
• 2 forms of lowercase letter a:Single-storey and double-storey (default).
• 2 forms of upper- and lowercase letters Ss:Pointy terminals (default) and teardrop terminals.
• 2 forms of upper- and lowercase letter Tt: Uppercase letter T has two variations of pointy terminals, normal angled and extra angular. Lowercase letter t has alternative form with teardrop shaped terminal to use at the end of words, and can add a slightly more stylish look. The default version has better proportional width with just a small non-decorative curved terminal, this default form has smaller width for a improved horizontal text advance.
• 4 forms for lowercase letter g:Just 3 additional extra slightly alternate forms.
• 5 forms for lowercase letter f:Bracketed (default), curved, teardrop narrow, teardrop extra narrow, teardrop wide.
• Extra set of Copyright symbols:Cap-height size and x-height size.
• 5 forms of Pilcrow symbols:Just 4 additional extra alternate forms.
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It covers most basic Latin languages, 65 in total so far.
Several symbols and punctuation marks are included. (probably more later)
I hope you like it so far,
Cheers
This is a cloneSchlanke Schöne is a tall condensed geometric sans serif typeface.
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The idea behind this font was to experiment with making interresting letterforms, with fewest possible resources. In other words, fewest possible default core bricks, no filters and mostly without expert mode. The only expert mode function I did use was "stack" bricks to make a small number of resized compositions and composite sloped angles. The total amount of different bricks used in the font is 20.
The font design is a simple, fairly straight forward looking sans, but due to this the end result also is pretty legible and clean. I was able to get most of the features done within the design parameters, such include optical correction, diacritics, stylistic alternates and swash capitals.
Very simple, but playful fun...
The stylistic alternates and swash capitals have been stored in the "Halfwidth and Fullwifth Forms" unicode block.
Hope you like it,
cheers
SANS SERIFSCO — Humanist / Neo-Grotesque Sans-Serif
A contemporary neo-grotesque sans-serif design with regular weight.
I tried to add subtle diverse and nuanced visual elegance while still remaining minimalistic. Most significant feature is the subtle stroke modulations, distinguishing this from a more geometric style.
Designed to be versatile and suitable for a wide range of different purposes and optimized for legibility in small point size body copy.
The font was constructed on a large grid using linear interpolation (also known as faux-Bézier method). This allowed the most freedom for constructing more complex custom forms, curvatures and all the various stroke modulations.
The font has a total vertical height of 88 square grid units, this is including all optical compensations, ascends / descends and accents.
STF_ELEGANZA (Therapy) ―Contemporary geometric humanist sans
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A font style, that while simplified by old tradition, saw new light by modern sophistication.
It comes in a solid medium weight that is very suitable for body style text with good readability, but it does perfect clean headlines or ads as well.
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The goal was to make a clean but somewhat more contemporary and playful take on a 'Grotesque' sans-style.
In an attempt to break away from the traditional trend of Grotesque type designs which evolved more around pure geometric shapes and aim for perfect circular, triangular or square shaped letterforms, that in return give many of them a somewhat harsch and featureless mechanical appearance, I choose to try and achieve the opposite, aiming for a softer, friendlier and more humanized feeling instead.
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Dimensions: (in grid units)
X-Height: 1 .625
Cap-Height: 1 .875
Em: 3 .5
Brick Size filter: 2 : 2
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This is the 'Therapy'-style in the 'ELEGANZA' typeface family. This version basically aims for the exact opposite effect than what the Tight' version did. The name 'Therapy' relates to its 'opened-up' appearence and the overall de-stressed propperties of this version. The more relaxed and spacious distribution remotely resembles the characteristic feel of a typewriter face. But the main purpose for this version is to create visual hierarchy in your layout.
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The other style variations can be found here:
ELEGANZA (Tight)
ELEGANZA (Tall)
I hope you like it...
This is a clone of STF_ELEGANZA (Tight)VAN NELLE (Blueprint) — Geometric modernist sans
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☛ THE SOURCE
A re-interpretation of the 1926 geometric sans serif alphabet system reproduction by Jacob Jongert, published in a 1930 sourcebook by N.J. van de Vecht. The geometric uppercase set of the alphabet system is what would later become the famous sans serif capitals which he used for lettering throughout many of his Van Nelle materials.
☛ THE FONTSTRUCTION
Attempt at making a convincing recap of the original alphabet by Jacob Jongert as it was shown in the 1930s sourcebook, and extrapolate that into a full functional font. The decision to go with a small grid sparked a number of limitations in terms of the design freedom that forced some inevitable changes. But the general idea sort of became not to make it a revival, but rather more or less a faithful revision. One that would still be instantly recognizable yet didn't necessarily had to be all about accuracy.
☛ —The small grid design made sure this wasn't happening anyway!
But, for instance, the most striking difference between the two fonts (their weight) in fact is such a byproduct for one of those limitations. Something FS's small grid couldn't properly reproduce, so VAN NELLE (Blueprint) has a slight stronger weight, making the font somewhat of a bold style version of the original. This in addition provided me with slight extra freedom to inplement a little personal touch for further manicure of the font's finer details. Which allowed me to cope with some of the optical clunkiness that come with a fatter face and the grid based design.
Besides these circumstantial differences, which were basically beyond my control, I've also made some intentional changes to make the typeface more practical to use. The changes include things like the significantly lowered ascender height, the slight different width for certain letters, larger tittle (dot above i, j & ij), and several more. despite these changes I believe it very much still reflects what Jongerts once invisioned for the system.
☛ SOME NOTES ON THE ORIGINAL AND ITS CREATOR
Jacob Jongert(1883-1942) was a advertising designer from the Netherlands. After varied studies, including being Roland Holst’s assistant and an acquaintance and colleague of S. H. de Roos [who brought the Arts & Crafts ideas of William Morris to the Netherlands and devoted his career to book design and typography] with whom Jongert experimented with several printing techniques and discovered graphic design as his ideal art form.
¶ In 1923 Jongert rolled in a unique and long-term collaboration with the Van Nelle company, where he became head designer, a position he held until 1940. The Van Nelle company had an extremely modern approach towards advertising (they even commissioned Cassandre to do a poster) and Jongert created for the firm a recognizable image with clear shapes, powerful letters and primary colours, totally Dutch avant-garde in style, and with a strict and rigorous approach directly linked to De Stijl principles. The corporate identity he created has become a milestone in the design world.
¶ The lettering, however, is the driving force that ties it all together. The style is a straightforward set of plain, mono-linear, sans serif capitals in a style that just started to come into fashion in the late 1920s, early 1930s with the rise of functionalism and geometric type design. Yet, while these ideas were already thrown out there, its clever simplicity plus the systematic and cohesive way Jongert implemented his lettering was unusual at the time. The square and minimal construction of the forms allowed the letters to contract and expand to fit any situation, yet maintain a consistent and recognizable appearance throughout the Van Nelle line. ¶ Something we only recently have learned to appreciate is to see his hand crafted system amid the current advancements in variable-font technology, which offers a similar kind of flexibility to typeface designs. A quality that certainly placed him well ahead of its time.
What I particulary like about Jongert's original is the stuff that is going on in the lowercase set of the alphabet, which are those quirky lowercase letter inventions that are different from the more traditional modernist sans, but sadly the lowercase letters were pretty much never used in his works.
I created a simple PDF typeface specimen for those who want to see the high-resolution preview.
PDF SPECIMEN WAS DELETED
Thats all Folks ☚
☛ Cheers
BEACH RESORT — 1920s Art-Deco style
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Beach Resort is a tall geometric display sans inspired by the Art-Deco aesthetics.
It's condensed style makes up for a rather tall and narrow looking letter concept. The design is further characterized by this distinct asymmetric curve geometry. A tiny touch of stress was added on the vertical axis to create this gentle stroke contrast. The stressed weight of the horizontals automatically compensating it's optical correction issue.
— Only minimal kerning for now, more will be added soon
Hope y'all like it,
Cheers
LORD KRUMBLE —A transitional sans that mixed Art-Deco with neo-classical humanist minuscules
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Inspired to celebrate the homecoming of him who strikes fear in all badly baked treats, the one which nightmares are made of, that kind of person that makes every cookie crumble and wanna skip school for a day or two. Of course I'm talking about the one and only "Cookielord".
— "What could'nt be better suiting than to have a freshly crasfted and new font that is celebrating his return."
Him recently dropping a new FontStruction somewhat came as a pretty unexpected but nice surprise. It just so happened to be that I was already looking for new ideas that could lead to the next project. In fact, until recently I was actually still struggling with this, and hadn't really been able to provide a catchy and motivating design theme to bring to the table that would once again help me on my way with starting a new FontStruct project. So I took this occasion to see if I was able to find a little inspiration in his Verminfont. Not particularly aimed at doing a derivative work, nor anything closely resembling his cool font. Instead rather trying to draw some inspiration from that peculiar and playful but friendly characteristic, that to me personally distinguishes his Vermin font the most anyway.
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And so I appoligize for the fact that this doens't truly relates or do justice stylistically in any way to the aesthetic present in Cookielord's original Vermin font. That being said, this is what became the end product of that.
But, it does have one striking resemblance that pays a homage to him, and that is the included cookie. Sorry I took a bite out of it my friend, hope you can still appreciate it.
— Just to let you know that regardless wether you decide to stay or not, your recent return isn't going to be for nothing!!
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No 'Brick Size' filters were used, which of course presented me with a lot of challenges that limited the amount of complexity I was able to put in, something that wouldn't been the case with (2:2) 'Brick Size' filter settings. The other noteworthy aspect to this particular fontstruct is its grid size, which is tiny. Never before have I made a Fontstruction that required kerning values to fluctuate only as little as 0,01. This also made it impossible to implement optical corrections on the vertical axis in the form of overshoots, but luckily this didn't became a very clear issue in the end.
I'm not sure if I can complete the additional Latin accents for all characters due to the limited grid space available surrounding some of glyphs. I might try doing those later.
Let me know what u think of it so far fella's, stay tuned!
Cheers
STF_BODIDONE - Classic Didone style display serif.
Ahh sadly due to repeatedly running into a corrupted font when I save newly made changes to it, it eventually catched up with me and tested the limit of my patience.
I have had to painstakingly restore the font 5 times already since I started it.
So I stopped including new characters as well as making new changes to its existing character set. (At least for now)
Too bad because I wouldve loved to see this truly getting finalized.
So at this stage there are still a number of characters that remain in rough condition, and had yet to be further optimized.
The main A-Z alphabet luckily already was close to how I invisioned it, but especially the numerals, symbols and accents still have some rough edges.
Now, forgetting all that, I still think it is not a bad font at all. Everything is there for most common Western-European languages, somewhat still making this a usable font that I shouldn't be keeping in private!
I hope that despite my bad luck this time, y'all still like it.
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About this Font:
The idea was to make a classic Didone style display serif that is meant for making clean headline text similar to those often seen in older magazines or newspapers. I set out trying to design a semi-bold & slight expanded looking letterform with thin hairline serifs and strokes. I choose a large grid scale for the extra freedom in custom shaping this provides.
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Technique I used in this design:
This font in particular I have experimented with working within a "(asymmetrical-) Grid Scale ratio" ( 1,5:1 ), so, changing only the value for the Horizontal grid scale. (This distorts the grid aspect ratio, and is a great way to discover and experiment with getting new forms and shapes).
The 1,5 : 1 ratio was specifically choosen to keep maths simple, in order to rebuild certain required bricks that build specific slope angles , such as a 45° (which is no longer possible to make from the FS default brick set when using asymmetric scale ratios, unless making composites).
But what this also does is opening up a totally new approach to making shapes, and..becoming quite a surprisingly easy shortcut to get unusual shapes or make variations on these, even with as little as just the rotation of the bricks/selection. (thanks to the distorted aspect ratio) :-).
This is a must try for those who are into large grid designs, fake curves or interrested in experimenting around a little.
Enjoy!