Posts filed under “News”
Dear FontStructors,
Many congratulations to all those who participated in another amazing and record-breaking competition. With almost 100 entries, this was our most popular competition ever. I hope everyone had as much fun designing as I did watching the FontStruct gallery flood with color*.
Unfortunately it’s not possible, within a single blog post, to mention every design which deserves inclusion. In this short post, we can only hope reflect on some recurrent themes, show a few of the designs which caught the judges’ eyes, and announce the lucky prizewinners – I can only curse the fiendish and unrelenting creativity of the FontStruct Community (that’s you!) for this sad state of affairs. I encourage everyone who reads this post to survey ALL of the entries, many of which are enhanced in their descriptions and comments by samples and intriguing backstories.
The Geometrics
A number of competition entries had a very clear geometrical focus, inspired by Bauhaus or classical modernism more generally. Lessons in Composition, Vol. 1 by elysian7403 for example, the second FontStruction shown below, made a strong impression with its exploration of the interplay between negative space and color.
Color Shifts
Another theme recurring throughout the competition was color shifts – FontStructions with flimmering polychromatic edges, shifting laterally, or vertically as in the case of zandia eYe/FS:
Plain Pixels
As always, there were many entrants who chose to dip just the one brick, the first and the plainest of all, into their pots of color. There are manifold bricks in our palettes, and often it seems that fonts with pure pixel aesthetics don’t get the attention or praise they deserve (spoiler alert: we do have a pixel font winner this time around). Our guest judge, Joe Stitzlein, particularily admired Discoshar (shown in the first two lines of text below) with it’s crazy explosion of pixel bling in the lower case and it’s extensive character set, including cyrillic.
Honorable Mentions
As noted above, every competition entry was honorable (I think!) and many, many are worthy of mention, so the following selection is only a subjective sample …
s’more by tortoiseshell, is an expertly-executed fun work, which certainly made the judges’ mouths water:
There weren’t many script entries – always a tricky genre – and Joe Stitzlein was especially impressed by Prepper’s Tecodanthe –with it’s quirky assembly of pyramidal studs:
Gob Pixi by faux_icing is a unique and serious experimental work created through a fascinating bespoke process (described in more detail on the FontStruction page) involving FontStruct, Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. The judges talked about this one for a long time. Could easily have been a winner on another day.
Personally I love this last-minute entry. G1 BattleGraf: Yet another masterwork from the godfather of the ’struct – geneus1. G1 BattleGraf is incredibly fun to type with – it immediately makes the humble keyboard-slapper feel like an artist.
Softstruct from Frodo7 was one of Joe Stitzlein’s clear favourites. It stood out for him straightaway as a strong and playful concept, ingeniously executed. It also came within a whisker of winning the popular vote.
The Winners
Outstructing the strongest of competition, not least from his other entries, the first of our winners is kassymkulov with Penzl KD: A clever, witty concept, perfectly extrapolated through the lower-case variants and the punctuation. Joe noted the engineering intelligence of the design: the smart and funny solutions found for the unique challenges of each glyph form.
Our first-time winner is a pixel font! – AJN Jellybean from AidenFont. Again Joe’s expert eyes were immediately drawn to the sweet charms of this gelatinous design. He admired AidenFont’s attention to detail, color-choices and his ability to understand and give depth to the overlapping, bulbous forms.
Finally, The FontStructors Favorite, chosen by popular vote, is Memphisette from V. Sarela (Yautja). There was actually a tie with Softstruct by Frodo7 and Playfully by The Dab Master, so we used the balanced rating as a tie-breaker. Memphisette is a brave typographical foray into the color palette and formal language of 1980s design. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone else attempt this on FontStruct before. A clever, thoughtful homage to a moment of postmodern weirdness:
That’s it! Prizewinners will be contacted in the coming days.
Thanks as always to our Patrons who continue to support FontStruct financially (you can too!), and to our main sponsors GlyphsApp and FontSelf.
Many thanks to our guest judge Joe Stitzlein who gave us a generous amount of his time and expertise for free.
Joe Stitzlein, and on the right, one version of his font Hamster, released by Fontwerk.
– Joe’s is a typeface designer and Executive Creative Director of Stitzlein Studio, a brand identity and digital design practice in the Bay Area. He’s created custom type for Meta in thousands of languages and designed iconic identities for Netflix, Dwell, and Lilly. Previously, Joe led global brand design at Google, partnered with Steve Jobs at Apple, and launched campaigns for Nike and the Obama White House. Learn more at https://stitzstudio.com and https://www.instagram.com/stitzstudio
Congratulations again to all who took part.
Until the next competition, Happy FontStructing!
*color will get its ‘u’ back after this post.
Dear FontStructors,
Spring is here and the flowers are a-blooming in every shade and hue, or so they tell me.
It’s time for the latest FontStruct Competition, and this time our theme is color*.
For this competition, any FontStructor can design and enter up to three color FontStructions.
IMPORTANT: If you are NOT a patron, in order to access color, you must proactively enter this competition: Simply login and visit https://fontstruct.com/enter/color. Three empty color FontStructions will be created for you automatically. (Please do not create extra accounts in order to access additional color FontStructions. Such accounts will be deleted.)
To get an idea of how to work with color and layers, I recommend reading the original color blog post, and/or watch this amazing video by kassymkulov. Note that you can use a maximum of 8 different colors in a design.
The Brief
Very simple. We would like you to build one or more FontStructions which make good (creative/clever/appropriate) use of color. That’s it! You might want to take a look at our existing color fonts for inspiration.
When you’re done and ready to submit an entry, remember to tag it with “ColorComp”.
Competition Time Period
Thursday, 15th May 2025 – Friday 30th May, 2025
Competition Rules
- You must be a registered FontStruct user.
- Your submissions must make use of color/shade in some way
- Your submission(s) must be posted and made “public” between 15th May 2025 and 10th June, 2025. 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 30th May, 2025 at 11pm PST. Additionally, your submission(s) must remain public at least until 10th June 2025 in order to give the judges enough time to review all qualifying entries.
- Your submission(s) must be tagged with a “ColorComp” tag. (For fairness, during the competition time period, no FontStruction with the “ColorComp” tag will be awarded a “Staff Pick”.)
- Your submission(s) must be downloadable. If your FontStruction cannot be downloaded, the submission will not be including in the judging.
- Your submission must be a newly published FontStruction. Simply adding the “ColorComp” tag to an already published font is not allowed.
- For each submission, you must post at least one sample image in the comments of the FontStruction.
- FontStruct cloning is permitted but the judges will be looking for original work.
- You may enter up to three FontStructions to the competition.
- This is a friendly competition. Cheering, favoriting and fun banter is encouraged but cruel and uncivil behavior will not be tolerated.
- No rules regarding licensing. You may choose any license you like for your FontStruction. (but it needs to be downloadable!)
Judging and announcing the winners
All qualifying FontStructions will by judged by FontStruct staff between May 30th and June 10th. (We are still looking for a celebrity judge.)
Three prizewinners will be chosen.
One of these will be the FontStructors’ Favourite*.
One winner will be a ‘newcomer’ – i.e. someone who has never won a FontStruction competition prize in the past.
One winner will be chosen as an overall winner (this overall winner could be either the “FontStructor’s Favourite” or the “Newcomer”.)
Winners will be announced in a FontStruct Blog post on Tuesday June 10th 2025.
Prizes
The three winners can choose to receive either a T-shirt printed with a FontStruction glyph of their choice, or one year’s free “patron” status on FontStruct.
*FontStructors’ Favourite
The valid entry with the highest number of legitimate favourites (yes we check!) at 11pm PST on 30th May 2025 will be the FontStructor’s Favorite and one of the three prizewinners.
Questions?
If you have questions just add them as comments to this post.
Happy FontStructing!
*I normally write colour on this blog, but to avoid confusion, it will be color (no ‘u’) for the duration of this competition.
FontStruct would like to heartily thank our principal sponsors Glyphs and FontSelf, and our many FS Patrons for supporting FontStruct.
Dear FontStructors,
A small, tardy birthday gift to celebrate FontStruct’s recent 17th birthday: Today we’re adding support for two new download formats to FontStruct: WOFF2 – the current standard webfont format – and COLR v0 – the colour font format with the broadest software support, much broader than SVG Truetype, which was all we offered until now.
The headline for this blog post is not a GIF. It’s a font! (kd loopin by kassymkulov): a WOFF2 webfont with COLR. You’ll notice that it’s possible to customize the font colours with COLR fonts. You can even animate the palettes. Also, because it’s a webfont, you can embed it and try it out directly in your browser. Click on the headline and give it a go!
You’ll find the new download formats on the download page for each FontStruction e.g. zeeventeen eye/FS. (COLR only for colour fonts obviously).
Creating colour fonts will remain patron-only for the forseeable future, BUT we will soon run a colour competition for which all FontStructors will be able to design in colour.
Special thanks as always to our patrons who support work on new features such as this one, as well as the costs of running and maintaining FontStruct. And many thanks also to our two generous sponsors Glyphs and Fontself – wonderful people creating excellent and unique font creation software.
Happy FontStructing!
Random samples from the Game Recreations set.
Dear FontStructors,
The “Game Recreations” set, curated by Patrick Lauke (redux) and goatmeal has proved itself an astounding success, thanks to its enthusiastic and dedicated curators. It now contains over 2.3K designs! The largest staff-curated set “Dot Matrix” in comparison contains only about 100. This suggests to me that community curation of sets could and should be expanded if possible.
So. Is anyone out there interested in curating an existing, or a new Set?
You can find a list of all current, public Sets here. More can be added e.g. Conlang, Public Transport, Lift displays …
What is a Set?
The main idea behind Sets is that they provide a consistent classification of FontStructions – the consistency coming from the vision of a limited group of curators. Tags are great, but they tend to be more ambigious and applied inconsistently, reflecting the diversity of individual outlooks. (Most) Sets also include only higher quality designs – not necessarily Staff Picks, but coherent designs with a decent-sized character set.
Becoming a Set Curator
To curate a set you need to be.
- 18 or over.
- A regular visitor to the site – say, once every couple of weeks.
- Able to demonstrate a reasonable understanding of the Set you are curating – e.g. if you had created a range of Art Deco FontStructions, you would likely be well qualified to curate the Art Deco set. Maybe you are an experienced user or designer of Type who has a good understanding of specific genres and styles. Or maybe you just have a long-held fascination with one particular kind of font.
Ideally you will also have a record of friendly (at least not unfriendly) and trustworthy activity on FontStruct.com.
Curating a set is an entirely voluntary rôle for people who feel passionate about a particular style or aspect of the FontStruct world.
If you’re interested, let us know.
Dear FontStructors,
3-2-1 … FontStruct! It’s time for the latest FontStruct competition, supported this time around by our long-term sponsor GlyphsApp, the world-leading desktop font editor for the Mac.
We’re delighted to announce that type designer, digital punchcutter and communicator Rainer Erich Scheichelbauer from GlyphsApp will be joining us to help judge this competition. As well as his expert eyes, Rainer will bring with him a license for Glyphs 3 as a prize for the overall competition winner.
Scroll down beyond the image to see details of the competition brief, rules and prizes …
The Brief
We would like you to build one or more FontStructions which are somehow connected to our competition theme: “Numbers”.
As always, please do interpret the theme as loosely, literally or figuratively as you wish – it’s there only to inspire, not to confine, although we do expect all entries to contain glyphs representing the numerals 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9. Also note that the image above is only for decorative purposes. It doesn’t indicate expectations, or prescribe a direction.
Competition Time Period
Thursday, 18th April 2024 – Friday 10th May, 2024
Competition Rules
- You must be a registered FontStruct user.
- Your submission must contain the digits 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9.
- Your submission(s) must be posted and made “public” between 18th April 2024 and 10th May, 2024. 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 10th May, 2024 at 11pm PST. Additionally, your submission(s) must remain public at least until 18th May 2024 in order to give the judges enough time to review all qualifying entries.
- Your submission(s) must be tagged with a “NumbersComp” tag. (For fairness, during the competition time period, no FontStruction with the “NumbersComp” tag will be awarded a Staff Pick.)
- Your submission(s) must be downloadable. If your FontStruction cannot be downloaded, the submission will not be including in the judging.
- Your submission must be a newly published FontStruction. Simply adding the “NumbersComp” tag to an already published font is not allowed.
- For each submission, you must post at least one sample image in the comments of the FontStruction.
- FontStruct cloning is permitted but the judges will be looking for original work.
- You may enter up to three FontStructions to the competition.
- This is a friendly competition. Cheering, favoriting and fun banter is encouraged but cruel and uncivil behavior will not be tolerated.
- No rules regarding licensing. You may choose any license you like for your FontStruction. (but it needs to be downloadable!)
Judging and announcing the winners
All qualifying FontStructions will by judged by FontStruct staff between May 11th and May 18th.
Three prizewinners will be chosen.
One of these will be the FontStructors’ Favourite*.
One winner will be a ‘newcomer’ – i.e. someone who has never won a FontStruction competition prize in the past.
One winner will be chosen as an overall winner (this overall winner could be either the “FontStructor’s Favourite” or the “Newcomer”.)
Winners will be announced in a FontStruct Blog post on Tuesday May 21st 2024.
Prizes
The overall winner will receive a full license for Glyphs 3.
The other two winners can choose to receive either a T-shirt printed with a FontStruction glyph of their choice, or one year’s free “patron” status on FontStruct.
*FontStructors’ Favourite
The valid entry with the highest number of legitimate favourites (yes we check!) at 11pm PST on 10th May 2024 will be the FontStructor’s Favorite and one of the three prizewinners.
Questions?
If you have questions just add them as comments to this post.
FontStruct on four.
Uno, due, tre, quattro …
FontStruct would like to heartily thank our principal sponsor Glyphs and our many FS Patrons for supporting FontStruct.
Dear FontStructors,
Over the past decade and a half, many millions of our bricks have been arranged across the world. I found the ones pictured above last Summer, shining through the drizzle in the small Irish town of Callan while looking for their designer who unfortunately was away at the time. There is no sight more magical for me than FontStructions glimpsed out in the wild like this.
So Happy Birthday! FontStruct was launched 16 years ago today on April 1st 2008. Since then we’ve welcomed 2.2 million FontStructors to the grid, and about 2.4 million designs have been started. 77,000 FontStructions have been shared publicly in our Gallery.
Thanks to everyone who has contributed to our site over the past 16 years, especially to those of you who have created and shared your original designs here.
An extra-special thanks to each of our 30 or so Patrons, who make a tangible and vital contribution to the site.
Thanks also to Rainer and Georg of the Glyphs project, creators of the wonderful Glyphs 3 font editor. Glyphs is our main sponsor and they continue to generously support modular typography on FontStruct in 2024, having done so now for over 10 years!
Here, as a small, sweet birthday delight, are a selection of 256 “P”s designed on FontStruct in recent years. (P is the 16th letter of the latin alphabet).
What’s Next
There will be another competition starting soon. Hopefully within the next two weeks. Watch this space!
Happy FontStructing!
Dear FontStructors,
The “Heavy” competition has ended and, once again, the staff at FontStruct Towers were overwhelmed by your creativity. Sixty amazing entries! I hope that everyone had fun taking part, and took pleasure in designing and sharing your work. I’m only sorry that we will feature only a few FontStructions in this post.
With judging a more daunting prospect than ever, we sought and found the assistance of a genuine typographical heavyweight. As well as being the managing editor at Fonts in Use and founding partner of design agency Kaune & Hardwig, Florian Hardwig has been a FontStruct supporter since its earliest days. (Of our 2.1 million+ registrations, he is number 99!) He’s also used FontStruct as a tool in his teaching practice in the past, even smuggling FontStruct right into the Bauhaus Archive itself!
Without further ado, Florian’s favourites:
Winner #1 db HeavyLight by beate
Florian wrote:
I’m fond of FontStructions that embrace the limitations of the grid and explore an idea without dialing up the resolution endlessly. db HeavyLight is a great example. The square glyphs with their monospaced width and unconventional weight distribution seem to channel the lettering made by Chris Lebeau in the 1920s. In their playfulness, they also remind me of Ben Shahn’s work. The ingenious thing about db HeavyLight is that the lowercase holds alternate caps, shown white against black. By mixing positive and negative glyphs, one can unleash a fascinating play of figure and ground, of light and dark.
Winner #2 tm about a square by thalamic
Florian wrote:
Blocky typefaces of very heavy height tend to look clunky and boring. It helps to add a dash of white, to open up the black surface a little, and also to hint at counters and stem boundaries. One clever and minimalist way of doing so is to overlay the glyphs with fine lines. In True Cross Fire and Watzlcross, two film faces from the 1970s, this resembles cross hairs. In tm About a Square I see a more peaceful and pleasant analogy: each glyph looks like a gift, wrapped in paper and tied with a ribbon!
Winner #3 Metaal by four
Florian wrote:
I had a hard time deciding between Metaal and Zwaar, another compelling entry by the same contestant. In the end, Metaal’s fun and (seemingly) simple concept won me over. Basic letterforms defined by monolinear strokes for contours and counters, abutted against each other – just like we used to draw them on graph paper during lesson, while dreaming of the next festival weekend. What makes Metaal so cool is its steep angle. Together with the diagonal terminals that oscillate around the baseline and x-height, it yields a wicked look. This font is a machine for making instant band logos.
Colour Winner: KD Kalyn by architaraz
As it turned out, Florian’s choices were all monochromatic although he did admire the colour entries, picking out this one in particular. KD Kalyn by architaraz was also my favourite from among the polychromatics. It’s wonderful that it works, both as a plain single colour design, and as this chunky array of escheresque facets.
The People’s Choice
The People’s choice was Zwaar. So double well-done four!
Honorable Mentions
I seriously recommend that everyone takes a close look at each and every entry – ideally download them and try them out. But here are a few more which I particularily enjoyed:
G1 Defkhan by geneus1, cicmankaputAB4028ii by jirinvk, Moon Machine A by V. Sarela (Yautja), Tennessine Slab by Frodo7, corpus opulentia by tortoiseshell, Ailurophilia FS by Haley Wakamatsu.
Thank you!
Thanks again to everyone who took part.
Thanks to our generous sponsors Glyphs App, the world’s leading desktop font editor for OSX. Glyphs continues to quietly and kindly support FontStruct in 2022.
Last but not least, thanks to our guest judge Florian Hardwig, for gifting us his time and expertise.
Have an idea for our next competition theme? Please add it in the comments.
Happy FontStructing!
Dear FontStructors,
Today we’re adding many more letters (the entire Unicode 13 standard) to FontStruct.
For those of you unfamiliar with the term, Unicode is a huge long list of all the letters and letter-like things which are used by all kinds of writing systems from all parts of the world. This comprehensive list is maintained by an international group of experts. Every letter (or letter-like thing) is assigned a code number, and these numbers are used to help identify letters inside computer fonts.
Before today, FontStruct supported only parts of Unicode, but now we’re finally providing access to all of the “code blocks” (i.e. all the letters) defined in the most recently released standard (Unicode 13). Now you could design a FontStruction containing as many as 143,859 letters*! I wouldn’t recommend that though. Once you get over about 10,000, you will find that the site and editor will start struggling.
The main reason for expanding the number of letters available on FontStruct is to allow designers to access and design a greater variety of scripts, in particular writing systems – such as Chinese scripts – which use a large number of characters, and also scripts, such as Sogdian or Old Sogdian for example, which we’ve simply overlooked until now. You can also now access the Emoji slots.
There’s still a long way to go in order to fully support the variety of scripts we’d like to see on FontStruct, but supporting Unicode is, I hope, a good start.
You will find all the new letters by selecting “Expert Mode” and then “Menu”, “Advanced”, “Unicode Letter Sets”:
The letter-set select box in the bottom-left corner of the FontStructor has changed. There are many more options of course (360 letter sets), and also a handy new search box to quickly find what you are looking for (desktop only). Note that we broke up some of the huge code blocks, such as the CJK extensions, into smaller, numbered blocks.
Full unicode support has been a very frequent request over the years, so it’s great to finally be able to deliver.
Thanks go, as ever, to our Patrons, and to our sponsors GlyphsApp (the world’s leading desktop type-design software) whose continuing support makes the development of features like this possible.
Happy FontStructing!
(PS: We still don’t provide access to codepoints below 30 – control characters.)
*As @BWM pointed out in the comments, there is a technical limit for TrueType fonts of 65,535 characters, so there’s certainly no point in going beyond that.
Dear FontStructors,
We are introducing three new features today.
For Everyone: OpenType/CFF Downloads
Strictly speaking this is not a new feature, but hitherto it was Patron-only. From today, all FontStructors will be able to download any appropriately-licensed FontStruction in the OpenType/CFF format. You can read more about the format and its qualities in this earlier blog post.
Layers were a part of the original FontStruct concept, and now, over 13 years later, we’re finally implementing them in the FontStructor.
To access the new Layers window, simply go into Expert Mode and then choose View->Layers from the Menu:
Each FontStruction starts with one default layer, but you can add up to a total of eight.
Layers can be sorted using drag and drop, renamed, and, of course deleted if they are empty.
Layer visibility can also be toggled, and invisible layers will be excluded from the download. This opens up the possibility of creating guide layers which you keep visible while designing but hide for download.
I’m confident that the our wily Patrons will come up with many ingenious uses for layers, but perhaps the main reason for introducing them is to allow us to introduce something else, something entirely new to FontStruct …
For good reasons, most real-world design employs only monochromatic glyphs. There is also plenty of scepticism in global design communities regarding the value of color fonts. Some see them as gimmicky, while others are frustrated that, up until now, for the most part, the colors are “baked-in”, and can’t be changed without editing the font itself.
But, polychromatic fonts do have clear uses: for icon sets for example, for emojis (yes, I know we don’t offer emojis as an option in the FontStructor yet) games and other custom projects.
Most importantly perhaps, color fonts are fun to create and use. I think they are a good match for FontStruct – already the birthplace of so many, wonderfully-extravagant display fonts.
So, with up to eight layers in the FontStructor, you can now work with up to eight separate colors. Simply assign a color to each layer using the color-picker.
You can download your multicolored font from the FontStruction’s download page. The “Richard of York” image above was created using a color font built using FontStruct.
Note that only certain desktop software supports color fonts, and there are a number of competing formats.
The format we are offering initially is called “OpenType SVG”. This format is supported by Windows, OSX, by Sketch, the Affinity software, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign, by Paint.NET and by some (but not all!) browsers. Note that OpenType SVG fonts also always contain a monochromatic fallback version of each glyph, and you will always be able to download traditional TrueType and OpenType versions from FontStruct.
This is only the first step in our exploration of color fonts. We hope to add support for other color font formats (such as COLR) in the future to offer wider browser support. We may also add a multi-font download option whereby each layer can be downloaded as a separate font.
Become an FS Patron
As these are “niche” features, it’s likely that we will keep layers and color fonts as patron-only in the medium-term and possibly even long-term. If you are desperate to try out color designs in the FontStructor, remember that you can sign up to be a patron at any time to not only enjoy access to this feature, but also to directly support the ongoing development of FontStruct as a whole.
Thanks
Thanks, as always, to our wonderful sponsors GlyphsApp, and to our treasured Patrons.
Happy FontStructing!
P.S.
architaraz has created a great introductory video tutorial on creating a color font using FontStruct.
Dear FontStructors,
Wow! That was amazing. I didn’t think it possible, but you have surpassed yourselves once again.
I’m sorry that it took an extra week to complete this blog post. One major difficulty was simply that there were so many competition entries worthy of recognition. Indeed, many entries merit a blog post all to themselves. I would encourage anyone reading this to browse all the entries directly because they simply cannot all be represented here.
Let’s have a look at a selection of the entries. You’ll find the prizewinners at the very end of the post, but everyone who entered is a champion. Well done!
From top to bottom: Codarte by V. Sarela (Yautja), db Mangold by beate, twentysomething by four, KD Dekorat by architaraz.
– We start with four wonderful, intelligent designs, all of which were a delight to work with as installed fonts. I love the dot details in Codarte.
db Mangold leaves me speechless. I’m guessing the inspiration is Bernhard Antique but this seems to be a completely original and mature design that goes far beyond what I thought was possible with FontStruct. Amazing.
twentysomething is a lovely, light and playful thing which ended up being the FontStructor’s favourite this time around.
KD Dekorat with its maze-like panelling is a beautiful example of how diverse Deco typography can be.
From top to bottom: G1 Decoreus by geneus1, KD Jermaine by architaraz, db Ventica by beate, KD Xxies by architaraz
I’m not sure what G1 Decoreus was inspired by, I’d love to know, but it certainly feels true to the architectural and decorative spirit of the 1920s. Stout and elegant at the same time. I love it.
KD Jermaine is an intricate and pretty multilined deco typeface, but note also the clever XX pun running right through the alphabet.
db Ventica: Um. What? How? ?? Another virtuoso re-FontStruction of an original ’20s typeface, this time, I believe, Fanfare. Amazing!
KD Xxies is yet another fine Deco typeface from architaraz. Note that although I have only used the caps here, there is also a lower case.
From top to bottom: bulbambulAF3630 by jirinvk, tm RenMac by minimum, Caligari by erictom333, Gilded Teatro and Gilded Teatro Double by Haley Wakamatsu (UkiyoMoji Fonts) (japanyoshi).
The inimitable jirinvk created an entire family of graphically strong bulbambuls for the competition, inspired by Gunta Stölzl (1897–1983), the Queen of Bauhaus. Note that the letters in the sample are rotated slightly from the original typeface.
TM RenMac, shown very much out of context here, cleverly takes the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, the Glaswegian Designer and Architect, and reinterprets it on the FontStruct grid. Thanks for this one miminum!
Caligari is a lovely, messy cutout design which inspired the sample as a whole, while Gilded Teatro forms another little family: A perfect articulation of deco style in two pixel fonts, both a pleasure to work with.
From top to bottom: Noar2 by Galo (galoreporter), G1 Broadwaif by geneus1, ztefan eYe/FS by elmoyenique, Shooting Star by Echo Heo (bluemon).
Deco all the way in the above image.
Noar2 is a classic, condensed, deco typeface with a small-caps lower case, full of subtle and characterful details.
G1 Broadwaif is simply beautiful. There are alternate caps in the lower case.
ztefan eYe/FS will appear again later in this post so I’ll skip that one for now.
Shooting Star is that FontStruction rarity: a legible typeface which can work for copy at medium and smallish sizes. Well done Echo Heo!
From top: KEM-base by nightpegasus, STRUCTURES by Oli Town (not a competition entry), briste by four, Moderto by V. Sarela (Yautja)
KEM Base is inspired by the work of designer Kem Weber. I enjoy the quirky asymmetry. For me the design is suggestive of early 20th century primitivism.
The beautiful leaf-like “briste” also has an organic character, belying the grid beneath, while right at the bottom you see the ambicase Moderto – a perfectly executed and very legible design inspired by Futura Display.
From Top: OshanDeco by Wataru (Wataru Aiso), ginevra’s typewriter by swash.buckler, (the third typeface in this sample sadly seems to have been deleted from FontStruct since I downloaded it. I think it’s great), strawberry by time.peace.
– A second breakfast decofest in the form of four diverse and perfectly-executed deco designs.
From Top: Baardusan by Echo Heo (bluemon), ztefan eYe/FS, zergei eYe/FS and zandrine eYe/FS by elmoyenique. Pattern element from Brick Basket Rev2 by zephram (not part of competition).
Some extravagant deco geometry in Baardusan, and then three FontStructions from elmoyenique. I really enjoyed the rich back story to his entries, connecting three art and design movements which marked the 1920s – Bauhaus, Deco and Contstructivism – with their three European capitals, and with three mysterious figures appearing in a series of period photos. When the novel comes out, I will read it. With Zandrine, as with beate’s entries we’re going back into typographic history, perhaps well beyond the 1920s in this case, to Rubens perhaps?
From top: tm The XX by minimum, Russian AG by Frodo7, Twenty-tmchty by m_cm, TwenTwenty by BWM, Frunze Stencil by Frodo7
tm The XX caught the eye of our guest judge, Nick Sherman:
“I love type that pushes the boundaries of how type should work or how it even can be rendered with current digital rendering technology. This typeface does both of those things. In many typical typographic contexts of size and resolution, all the little details of the design turn to mush (the fact that there are specific instructions on how to zoom to see it properly on the FontStruct site is just one such example). But if you have the bravery to set it at gigantic sizes, you can really see how wonderfully bonkers it is. Between the underlying patterns and the variants of each letter, there is also all kinds of potential for cool effects with color and overlaid glyphs.”
Russian AG is an impeccable Rodchenko-inspired slab-serif with cyrillic support.
Twenty-tmchty is a highly conceptual interpretation of the theme – a twenty-by-twenty grid and only twenty unique glyphs covering 66(?) different symbols. So for example, one glyph is used to represent l,u,v,L,U and V. Fascinating!
From top: G1 2020 Vision by geneus1, db Questura by beate, NX Chaos by Nyxo8803
Nick was impressed by G1 2020 Vision:
“This typeface occupies a spot among other halftone typefaces like Calypso, Tonal, and especially Process. I’ve always had a fondness for type that plays with halftones, and the fact that this one recreates the effect so effectively within the limitations of FontStruct is admirable. The play on the concept of 20/20 vision by creating a blurred effect is also a nice visual tie-in to the ‘twenties’ theme.”
He liked the “Mexico Olympics vibe” of db Questura and appreciated the full character set, and he also saw something special in NX Chaos:
“At first I was on the fence about including this typeface among the highlights of the ‘twenties’ competition. There were other designs that were executed with more skill, had more complete character support, etc. But I kept coming back to this one because it’s a rare embodiment of pure nihilism in the form of a typeface. It follows a style of glitchy digital graphics right to the brink of complete illegibility, as if to say: ‘Go to hell. I don’t even care if you can read this’. It’s like a font from a cyberpunk nightmare, and sometimes that’s the kind of energy you need when designing in the 2020s.”
Winners
The winners are G1 2020 Vision by geneus1, db Questura by beate and tm The XX by minimum, and, as the FontStructor’s choice, twentysomething by four. Congratulations! You will be contacted in the next few days about your prizes.
Thanks again to everyone who took part.
Happy FontStructing!
Thank You!
To our guest judge for this competition: Nick Sherman. Nick runs HEX a typographic company that makes fonts and websites. He’s a founder and designer of v-fonts.com and Fonts In Use, and art director of the Typographics design festival. Nick is a graduate of the Type@Cooper Extended Program in typeface design and has served on the Type Directors Club board of directors, the Adobe Typography Customer Advisory Board, and the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum artistic board.
To our patrons – those FontStructors who support the ongoing development of the project and help make events like this competition possible.
To our generous sponsors Glyphs producers of the world’s leading desktop font editor for OSX.
