Typographic endeavours
I have found that I am quite fond of typography. I enjoy looking at libraries of typefaces. I like reading about the history of a typeface. I try my best to use type well.
The I Love Typography blog is a great place to go to if you find yourself strangely entertained by all things type-related. There are many articles for beginners and experts, as well as interviews and tutorials. The best thing is the community feedback, and the discussions that take place in the comments. Great fun.
Well, there’s also a series on the site called “So you want to create a font” (here’s parts one and two). Inspired by that series, and by some sketches of type that I saw on the site and around the web, I sketched some characters in my little A5 sketchbook.
Yes, that’s my attempt at a Helvetica ‘a’ on the top left. You know, you wouldn’t expect it, but sketching letters is fun.
This geometric type looked easy to vectorized, so I fired up Illustrator and started constructing. I ended up with the word ‘can’.
Looks alright. I think I need to sketch the rest of the alphabet before I vectorize it. Those lines in the back are the shapes I used to construct the characters.
This one I tried to trace in Illustrator, but it killed the entire character of the font. I really like how it looks in the sketch, and I’ve drawn out some more letters and they look good. I guess I also need to carefully draw the whole alphabet for this one, and do it larger.
The best thing about this is, it’s got me sketching more. Sketching is good 
January 2nd, 2008 at 9:51 am
What a great start you’ve made. Be sure to keep me updated. Perhaps I can feature your endeavours on iLT some day. Great stuff.
January 2nd, 2008 at 9:58 am
Thanks! I try. Your site has been a huge help of course. I’ll let you know when I have something complete.
January 2nd, 2008 at 10:37 am
That is very, very cool. I would buy that font! I hope you keep going…
January 2nd, 2008 at 11:26 am
Thanks! That’s the ultimate compliment! Which one are you talking about? I’ll give you a sample if I manage to actually make a complete font file. Any pointers and other help would be great. :-)
January 2nd, 2008 at 11:41 am
I like what you’ve done with the ‘can’ font, particularly. I don’t have any general pointers off the top of my head, but feel free to bug me with questions along the way, if you think I might be able to help.
January 2nd, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Alright then. I’ll work on it. Thanks!
January 6th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Hi,
the abc/can sketch/vector image looks a bit different. I’m no expert but to me the sketch looks still better because it’s narrower. Why don’t you scan the sketch and vectorize it then?
January 6th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
I agree with Alec on the ‘can’ font. It looks like a very nice start. I’d like to see more letters to go with those.
January 6th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
OMG just got featured on ilovetypography.com! Thanks Johno!
Bernd
I think you’re right. I was just excited about vectorizing the font and didn’t want to go through the hassle of scanning it in. I’ve been sketching since then, and I think that before I do any more vector work, I’m going to scan everything in first.
Zachary
Like I said, I’ve been sketching some more characters, and trying out a few upper case ones. Some of it looks really good, some of it needs more work. I’ll post it once I have a few cleaned up. I’d appreciate both your feedback then.
Thanks guys for commenting!
As they say in the south, “Y’all come back now, y’hear?” :-)
January 7th, 2008 at 1:21 am
Looks good to me. Actually, something I feel I could use for one of my current projects (my personal site).
Keep it up!
January 7th, 2008 at 2:30 am
Colin
Thanks! I’ll let you know if I ever manage to finish it. Or you could tell me which characters you might need and I can work on those first ;-)
January 7th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Yes, I think the reason that the vector version looks different is because the dimensions are slightly different then the sketch. The strokes look thiner. I agree about scaning it, or at least sketch it out on graph paper, then use those dimmensions in the vector. Leigh