Many thanks to all participants for another tremendous Structathon.
I hope everyone had as much enjoyment building their FontStructions as I did in seeing all your diverse and wonderful ideas land in the Gallery over the past few weeks.
There’s one thing I haven’t enjoyed so much: The judging. To those of you whose work is not mentioned in this post: I’m genuinely sorry! The selection included below is just a subjective sampling.
There were many, many other entries which could easily have won had the wind at FontStruct Towers swirled in a different direction on the day.
Anyway, let’s start with a review of some of the standout entries.
Alien Folk
I love the psychedelic, folk-horror connotations of “The Eyes Have It” from jonrgrover. When I retire to roam the hollow ways in my spooky carnival wagon, I’ll be daubing these glyphs on the side.
KD erutuF from architaraz also teasingly marries the primitive and the futuristic. If that black obelisk from “2001: A Space Odyssey” had some runes carved into its base, I believe they would look exactly like this.
zmokephantom eYe/FS from elmoyenique is an oddball amongst oddballs, a bizarre rippling italic, perhaps the first FontStruction to actually melt the bricks, while Galactic Gothic from bluemon is an ingenious attempt to hack blackletter and technoid features into a single font.
Techno Stencil
Quite a number of entries explored a classically technoid, futuristic trope with heavy, slabby designs – fonts all ready to be stencilled on the hull of a rusting, refurbished star-cruiser. Cyberbug from elzero, Broad Band Ultrawide from japanyoshi, Future Proof from four, Stardrifter, also from elzero and Rollerball_1 from JingYo are all examples for this genre and demonstrate the excitingly diverse possibilities within it.
Future Restraint
Some visions of the future were cleaner and more restrained.
Zoltank is a constructivist-flavoured, geometric display face from FontStruct’s long-time master of retro-futuristic typography, our very own Stanisław Lem, V.Sarela (I hope that’s a compliment. It’s intended as one).
Designed for “the future of Telerobotic medicine.” I recommend reading geneus1’s full explanation for the cool and elegant G1 Prone.
Like Zoltank, Cosmoknot by time.peace is expertly FontStructed and subtly complex. I believe it to be the only outline font among the entries. It’s full of fun glyph shapes, and makes a neat, oblique reference to the NASA worm.
I also really enjoyed Neo-Tokyo from Frodo7. Hints of flicking brushwork bring life to the otherwise technoid forms.
Catch and Patch
– Two leet entries from FontStructing legends. db Catch by beate has no obvious futuristic reference or connotation that I can see but it’s a fascinating and highly original entry. I love the internal dots on the i and j, and the umläute. Are they the “catch”?
And then we come to the mysterious, the ominous FS Patchman.
From William Leverette, the designer who discovered and shared the original brick stack hack, we have the promise of a new technique called “brick patching”. This may not be the FontStruction of the future, but could it be the future of FontStructing? I’m mesmerised by the x-rayed ‘S’ in William’s sample:
The Prizewinners
– In no particular order, as chosen by you and by our guest judge Ivo Gabrowitsch. There are actually four rather than three prizewinners since I asked Ivo for one winner too many.
First up, “G1 Nanocore” by geneus1. Apparently inspired by certain whacky contemporary ideas, this is a really fun font and sensitive microscopes may reveal it to be in your bloodstream already. I recommend reading geneus1’s own description of his design.
Next, Padomela LDR from Neoqueto. This was actually Ivo’s number one choice – “the closest to my projection of the future.”
Thalamic wins twice over (only one prize though sorry!). Ivo chose tm Forward as a favourite (“I like the more organic projection of the future”) while the “people’s favourite” was the ingenious font-within-a-font “tm two in one”.
As with beate’s other entry, the relationship to the future is unclear, but Ivo could not resist the impressive qualities of db tempo.
Finally (number two on Ivo’s list) I’m really delighted that someone new has made it onto the podium for this competition. Congratulations to japanyoshi for kognigear – a simple but usable design, clearly addressing the theme with a well developed character set.
Prizewinners will be contacted by email over the next few days.
Watch this space!
We’ll be adding a few new features to FontStruct over the next couple of weeks, so please stay tuned for an announcement on that – or follow FontStruct on Twitter if that’s your kind of thing.
Thanks!
To Ivo Gabrowitsch for helping us out again with judging. Having worked for brands like FontShop, FontFont, MyFonts, Linotype, and Monotype, Ivo understands the type business like no other. His company Fontwerk is dedicated to help type designers and foundries making a living with their passion.
And, as always, thanks to our principal sponsor Glyphs.
Please remember that you can get 10% off the Glyphs desktop font editing software (OSX only) if you buy it from the FontStruct website. This is an exclusive offer and by taking it up, you will also help support the free FontStruct service.
From the very beginning, FontStruct has tried to be easy-to-use and avowedly non-technical for its font-designing users, but of course there is a great deal of technology behind our platform, and today we’re open-sourcing a small, but important part of it: the core of our font generation module.
There are several reasons for open-sourcing this code. It offers other developers an opportunity to contribute to the font-generation side of FontStruct. It also offers others a new tool to assist them in building their own font-generation tools.
But the main motivation for sharing the code is the desire to give something back – in the form of publicity and a software library – to an open-source project (Haxe) which has been extremely helpful to us in recent years.
By popular demand we’ve added four new bricks to the core brick pack today.
They are half-arc shapes in three thicknesses to match the existing arc or “macaroni” bricks, plus the so-called “pizza-slice” brick. Thanks to everyone who proposed and argued for these additions.
Unlike other bricks we decided to include only a single orientation, rather than the usual set of four rotated variants.
Another fun-packed competition is complete, leaving us to celebrate a wonderful assembly of diversely-inspired and inspiring entries.
As so often in previous competitions, there are simply too many high-quality entries to give each and every one the attention which they merit, so I’d like to congratulate all participants on their creativity and skill, and encourage everyone to have a long look at all the entries to discover those many gems which are not featured in this post.
– I don’t entirely see how nocturnal addresses the “counter” theme, but, nevertheless, it’s a beautiful, clean design from FontStruct’s master of filigree, Art Deco design: time.peace.
architaraz’s KD Spaceband meanwhile is perhaps the most original and usable entry of all, cleverly exploring and reinventing the spaces enclosed within its glyphs.
Connect 42 by jonrgrover represents all those competitors who chose to explore the gaming counter metaphor, and it’s a simple but playful entry.
– I profoundly love the tattered geometry of zcrapedium. So much so, that you’ll find it lurking in the background of every sample within this post. The variants in the upper case are a great idea, and I can think of plenty of real-world applications for this one.
Below it: the mysterious N8Lite – but who is nightpegasus, its designer? I have my suspicions. Whoever they are, they demonstrate a highly idiosyncratic and expectation-confounding style, of which N8Lite is a great example – rule-bound yes, but how strange and elusive are those rules!
Serifia la printe represents a larger group of excellent, more “classical”, filled-counter entries. “Serifia” contains many surprising, and indeed inconsistent, design choices, but therein lies the strength of its oddball character.
– All three of these entries would likely have fared very well in the Inline Competition.
fs psyline and KD Hachure are examples of sophisticated and mature FontStructing – ready to be moved on into the character-set expansion phase and suitable for all kinds of design applications.
Below them. the charming and ingeniously entitled Owl Circle by Waturu Aiso has a more mannered, fantastical look.
Last, but not least, in this short and selective tour, we have a group of three diverse entries, beginning with NAL’s Zirconia – its glyphs like the aerial view of an extra-terrestrial base, revealing its intricate, bevelled construction only at larger point sizes.
Geometrica B&L turns out to be barely legible, so it’s probably best suited to a logo or short headline, but the patterns of its semaphore-like, cuneiform patternings are wonderful nevertheless.
And finally, geneus1 offered us an array of exceptional contributions to this competition– all expertly-crafted, things of beauty. You really have to install G1 Recoil and start playing with it, in order to fully appreciate the richness of its ornate strudel. Definitely a recommended download.
The Winners:
“breach” by four is a standout winner and the “FontStructor’s favourite” for the “Counter” competition. An ingenious warping and rupturing of the boundaries between interior and exterior space, it’s a thought-provoking work of art in itself, and invites extended contemplation.
UPDATE: Some twitter users have pointed out a similarity between “breach” and the very beautiful commercial release “Clip” from Setup (previously Urtd). Personally I suspect and see coincidental inspiration rather than imitation, but please visit the Setup site and make the comparison for yourself.
O yes! This was love at first sight. Starbird by V.Sarela (Yautja) is a perfect example of what one might call “groovy deco”, and I can easily imagine it gracing the worn cover of some favourite ’70s sci-fi paperback. The contrast of the fine circle with the smooth and heavy fill beneath it is quite sumptuous.
Elmoyenique’s zykowarfare reminds me of plastic letter stencils – incorrectly yet playfully filled out perhaps, at the back of a classroom on a hot afternoon. There are scores of intriguing nuggety forms to discover in this one, hidden away amongst its self-interlocking glyphs .
Thanks!
That’s it! Congratulations to all our winners and everyone who took part!
Winners will be contacted regarding their prizes over the next few days. But right now, I have an inexplicable urge to go and remodel the kitchen …
Who says referendums are a threat to true democracy? In the perfect world of FontStruct, they work beautifully. Before we’ve even started, we have a winner!
The results of our recent Twitter poll:
What should be the theme of the next FontStruct competition?
Our theme is Counter: “the area of a letter that is entirely or partially enclosed by a letter form or a symbol (the counter-space/the hole of)” as wikipedia describes it.
What goes on within those little pools of nothingness inside your letters? Are they empty, or filled? Does their surface swallow all light, or shimmer or glow?
Of course you can choose any other sense of “Counter“ (arithmetical, political, military etc) if you wish. – You don’t have to pursue the typographic angle.
Your submission(s) must be posted and made “public” between 8th May 2018 and 1st June, 2018. 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 1st June, 2018 at 11pm PST. Additionally, your submission(s) must remain public at least until 10th June 2018 in order to give the judges enough time to review all qualifying entries.
Your submission(s) must be tagged with a “CounterComp” tag. (For fairness, during the competition time period, no FontStruction with the “CounterComp” tag will be awarded a Top 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 “CounterComp” 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.
No letters in each submission can be MORE THAN 48 grid squares high.
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.
Judging and announcing the winners
All qualifying FontStructions will by judged by the FontStruct staff and guest judges between June 2nd and June 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 June 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 8th June 2018 will be one of the three prizewinners.
Questions?
If you have questions just add them as comments to this post.
FontStruct is currently on tour in Granada, Spain. On a cool but bright spring morning, I’m sitting in a roof garden in the old Arab quarter, the Albayzín, staring at the magnificent medieval, hill-top palace of the Nasrid dynasty: the Alhambra.
About 700 years ago, the finest arab mathematicians and local craftspeople joined forces here and colluded to create the complex, honeycomb ceilings for the sultan’s private chambers. Selecting and arranging from a limited array of simple, geometric building-blocks the architects created a dizzying, recursive edifice, like a vast, heavenly city suspended over the visitor’s heads.
▲ Ceiling in the Palace of the Lions (the Alhambra)
Were these designers, perhaps, the first FontStructors? Did they love and curse their little prismatic “Muqurnas” shapes and their limitations just as we love and curse our bricks? Did they leap up and scream with joy when they discovered a hitherto unthought-of combination of forms? If you are a FontStructor who has visited the Alhambra yourself you may well feel empathy with its architects’ profound passion for geometry; their predilection for modular building techniques and their love of decorative scripts.
Today, with FontStruct’s tenth anniversary imminent, we’re delighted to announce that Google Fonts will be our principal sponsor in 2018.
Introducing the SIL Open Font License
As part of their sponsorship, Google Fonts are helping us to implement a new open-source licensing option on FontStruct – The SIL Open Font License (OFL) – which we’re adding to FontStruct today:
The OFL is an open-source license, designed specifically for open-source fonts, and is suitable for designers who would like to make their work freely available with zero restrictions on use, modification or distribution.
Contribute to Google Fonts
But this is more than just another option in the licensing menu.
The OFL is the preferred license for contributions to Google Fonts’ renowned and robust directory of open-source, designer, web fonts; so it’s just become much, much easier to contribute your designs directly from FontStruct to Google Fonts.
At time of writing, there are few (if any?) modular, grid-based fonts on Google Fonts. We’re eager to see the first FontStructions appearing on fonts.google.com in 2018, and we hope that some of you will soon be enjoying the massive, global exposure and the state-of-the-art, zero-cost, webfont-delivery service that Google Fonts provides.
How can I contribute my FontStruction to Google Fonts?
To get started, your FontStruction needs to fulfil a few basic criteria, including:
It must be an original design, and of good quality (the ultimate judges of this are the Google Fonts team).
It must be licensed under the OFL.
It must contain, as a minimum, the 215 glyphs listed by Google. (with the exception of the last 3). You’ll notice these glyphs are now listed as a special character set in the FontStructor.
It must have a simple and unique name, with no copyright or trademark infringements, no initials and no abbreviations.
Once everything is ready, you can use the new “Contribute to Google Fonts” button on your FontStruction homepage to start the contribution process.
Helpful Resources
You will find a new section in our FAQ with a detailed, step-by-step guide to help you get started with contributing your FontStruction to Google fonts. Please read this guide thoroughly before proceeding. There’s also a dedicated contact channel for any further questions on this topic.
We’re looking forward to a very exciting year.
Happy FontStructing!
FontStruct would like to thank our sponsors: Google Fonts – Making the web more beautiful, fast, and open through great typography, and Creative Fabrica – your number #1 source for premium design elements.
Thanks to everyone for another fantastic year of FontStructing.
Special thanks to the FontStructors featured in our holiday sample above:
To funk_king for Ornaments – a wonderful collection of festive baubles.
To sorbilicious for “an old story by sorbilicious” – a magical blackletter
and to jirinvk for jaubolAC24 for an idiosyncratic A that’s also both a christmas tree and a wrapped present.
Happy Holidays Everyone!
FontStruct would like to thank our sponsor: Creative Fabrica – your number #1 source for premium design elements.
Will you ever disappoint? This time you were faced with what seemed, at first glance, a relatively staid and technical theme: “serif”. Nevertheless you rose to the challenge, with your inimitable imagination and energy – endlessly riffing, playing and transmogrifying to produce a magnificently rich and diverse array of 58 entries – a record haul for a FontStruct competition. Many thanks and congratulations to everyone who entered.
Judging was more difficult than ever, but, thanks to the excellent input of our guest judge beate, we finally reached consensus.
First up, and in no particular order, the four winning entrants:
G1 Radia was a unanimous choice of the judges. With it’s high-contrast strokes, ball-terminals and discreet little serifs this FontStruction genuinely radiates a curvesome beauty, although on closer inspection one also sees intriguing traces of its cruder, modular roots.
All four winners actually made multiple high-quality entries, some of which we couldn’t resist including in the samples, so below G1 Radia you can also marvel at the monumental G1 Valora – one of the serifiest serifs this side of the Pecos.
Hoek was elected by the FontStruct community as the “people’s favorite” . It obviously stems from a clear and precise concept for a bevelled slab, thoughtfully executed in every perfect detail.
In fact, the judges were even more excited by the highly-inventive “elza” (the second design featured above) in which wiry strokes terminate in a questioning hook-shape rather than a traditional serif or terminal. Planetarium, also shown above, was another strong and popular slab entry.
The judges were enchanted by Cembrel B: a subtle, attractive, and eminently-usable, high-contrast serif, part of a developing new family. Nouveaumbre was another really excellent entry from yautja.
A classifier’s nightmare: a slab serif concealed inside a sans! – what an innovative interpretation of the theme. Beyond the high concept, architaraz also succeeds in delivering a coherent and attractive typeface. Beneath AT Bals you can see the elegant inline ”AT Migdalia” with it’s hairline serifs.
Many, many congratulations to our four prizewinners.
This brutal disfiguration of an existing design by Sychoff came very close to a prize. Although tagged as punk, there’s also something quite primitive and ancient going on here. I can see these glyphs scratched into the base of an amphora, or perhaps arranged in the border of a mosaic. Compare the Jekyll to this Hyde.
Congratulations again to all winners, who will be contacted about their prizes in the next few days; thanks to our judges; and, most of all, thanks to everyone who took part. I look forward to our next competition.
Happy FontStructing!
Rob
FontStruct would like to thank our sponsor: Creative Fabrica – your number #1 source for premium design elements.
