Brick by Brick, the FontStruct Blog

The FontStruct Blog

Competition: Serif

Competitions | | November 2nd, 2017

Dear FontStructors,

It’s time for our second competition of the year, this time on the theme of “serif”.

Competition Brief

Our theme is the serif: “a small line attached to the end of a stroke in a letter or symbol” as wikipedia describes it – so your designs should focus on these strokes in some way or form. Serifs come in various shapes – Old-style, Didone, Slab and others. You can use any type(s) of serif you wish in your competition entries. Perhaps you could even devise a new serif form of your own.

FontStructors specialize in extravagant and experimental display fonts, so feel free to place your serifs in the foreground – they don’t have to be small as wikipedia suggests.

For typographic inspiration, please take a look at our Serif and Slab Serif category pages.

Competition Time Period

Wednesday, 8th November 2017 – Saturday 2nd December, 2017

Competition Rules

  1. You must be a registered FontStruct user.
  2. Your submission(s) must be posted and made “public” between 8th November 2017 and 2nd December, 2017. Although you are encouraged to share your submission(s) at any time between these dates, your FontStruction submission(s) must be public (marked “share with everyone”) no later than 2nd December, 2017 at 11pm PST. Additionally, your submission(s) must remain public at least until 9th December 2017 in order to give the judges enough time to review all qualifying entries.
  3. Your submission(s) must be tagged with a “Serifcomp” tag. (For fairness, during the competition time period, no FontStruction with the “Serifcomp” tag will be awarded a Top Pick.)
  4. Your submission(s) must be downloadable. If your FontStruction cannot be downloaded, the submission will not be including in the judging.
  5. Your submission must be a newly published FontStruction. Simply adding the “Serifcomp” tag to an already published font is not allowed.
  6. For each submission, you must post at least one sample image in the comments of the FontStruction.
  7. No letters in each submission can be MORE THAN 48 grid squares high.
  8. FontStruct cloning is permitted but the judges will be looking for original work.
  9. You may enter up to three FontStructions to the competition.
  10. This is a friendly competition. Cheering, favoriting and fun banter is encouraged but cruel and uncivil behavior will not be tolerated.
  11. No rules regarding licensing. You may choose any license you like for your FontStruction.

Judging and announcing the winners

All qualifying FontStructions will by judged by the FontStruct staff and guest judges between December 2nd and December 9th. Three prizewinners will be chosen. One of these will be the FontStructors’ Favourite. Winners will be announced in a FontStruct Blog post on Monday December 11th.

Prizes

Each winner can choose a t-shirt printed with a FontStruction glyph of their choice.

FontStructors’ Favourite

The valid entry with the greatest number of legitimate favourites at 11pm PST on 9th December 2017 will be one of the three prizewinners.

Questions?

If you have questions just add them as comments to this post.

May the best FontStruction win.


FontStructions in header image are clockwise from the top left: db Boxer Slab by beate, Manuale Neue Bold by laynecom, one-horse town by fourzeamróg-eYe/FS by elmoyenique, Unknownim by architaraz and RM Victoriana by p2pnut.


FontStruct would like to thank our sponsor: Creative Fabrica – your number #1 source for premium design elements.

 

 


20 Comments

  1. xXx XBox Gamer

    All letters must have at least 1 serif, right (except dots, commas, etc.)

    xXx XBox Gamer — November 9, 2017 #

  2. Rob Meek (meek)

    “@xXx XBox Gamer” No. The competition has a theme – “serif” – you can interpret that as you wish. There is no need for every letter to have any serifs. I think it would be strange to design a sans entry though.

    Rob Meek (meek) — November 9, 2017 #

  3. xXx XBox Gamer

    @meek if every font in a competition had 0 favorites…

    xXx XBox Gamer — November 9, 2017 #

  4. xXx XBox Gamer

    You put july 8, instead of december 8…

    xXx XBox Gamer — November 9, 2017 #

  5. Rob Meek (meek)

    “@xXx XBox Gamer” Yes thanks. That always happens!

    Rob Meek (meek) — November 9, 2017 #

  6. ETHproductions

    Oh man, I haven’t participated in an FS competition in so long. I’m feeling great about this one :-) Good luck to all participants!

    ETHproductions — November 9, 2017 #

  7. xXx XBox Gamer

    @Eth Good luck to you too.

    xXx XBox Gamer — November 9, 2017 #

  8. Lou FoxyBun

    I think I’m gonna try the competition, just for fun. I’m beginning to have an interesting idea in mind!

    Lou FoxyBun — November 9, 2017 #

  9. Aeolien

    Thank you for this exciting new competition, and for a subject to wake up all kinds of experiences and encourage experiments.

    Aeolien — November 9, 2017 #

  10. P0T4T0M4N

    Which glyphs does an entry need to have (for example, can i submit a font with only capital letters)?

    P0T4T0M4N — November 10, 2017 #

  11. P0T4T0M4N

    Good luck everyone!

    P0T4T0M4N — November 10, 2017 #

  12. xXx XBox Gamer

    Do only published entries count?

    xXx XBox Gamer — November 10, 2017 #

  13. Rob Meek (meek)

    I’m not sure what you mean, but I guess the answer is yes – you must publish your entries so that everyone can see them.

    Rob Meek (meek) — November 10, 2017 #

  14. xXx XBox Gamer

    Does height get measured from the baseline or the bottom of the letter?

    xXx XBox Gamer — November 10, 2017 #

  15. Rob Meek (meek)

    The bottom of the letter.

    Rob Meek (meek) — November 10, 2017 #

  16. Rob Meek (meek)

    @P0T4T0M4N There’s no minimum number of characters.

    Rob Meek (meek) — November 13, 2017 #

  17. xXx XBox Gamer

    What do “Legitimate Favorites” mean??

    xXx XBox Gamer — November 19, 2017 #

  18. Rob Meek (meek)

    @”XBox Gamer” I don’t really want to start a discussion about that, but in the (distant) past people have tried to manipulate the number of favourites they receive for competition entries – by creating fake users solely for that purpose or by getting all their friends, who are not FontStruct users, to join up and vote for them. – These are illegitimate favourites as far as I’m concerned. I will check for that kind of thing and I wouldn’t recommend trying it, as it will only end in embarrassment.

    Rob Meek (meek) — November 19, 2017 #

  19. architaraz

    Hi, did I understand smth wrong? Wasn’t the deadline december 2nd 11pm? Google says it’s 2:30am pst december 2nd right now..

    architaraz — December 2, 2017 #

  20. meek

    Yes. Sorry, I got the time wrong. You still have time.

    meek — December 2, 2017 #