I should mention that for the moment all kerning and spacing is being very roughly handled by InDesign...

I think it is a good start - I find the dot on the i too tall against letters like h, d, b etc.

Personally, I see that as a feature. It is not usual to see the tittle height overshoot the ascender height, but precisely that is what adds character to the font.

I love the subtlety in which this is still a semi-serif. Nice starting point.

Are you sure this doesn't already exist as a font? (did you post it in the type ID section?)

I will come back soon to give you proper feedback.

I'm unsure if this is a good start or if there are a multitude of errors hidden away within what I've done.

Why not both?! :-)
- in /bdgpq/ the curved thick of the bowl looks lighter than the straight stem
- thin pointy top of /t/ doesn't mesh with the relatively blunt terminals elsewhere
- shortness of ascenders may be too extreme for a typeface (what works with the particular letters on the book cover won't necessarily be generalizable metrics).
- more space in the counters of /MNW/ would be useful
- /X/ looks heavy and wide
- /CG/ tops seem too thick
- maybe the little pinches at the tops of the caps should be more subtly done
- spine of /s/ is too dark
- waist of /P/ should probably be lower

I’m back! A few comments:
- In agreement with Craig's comment, /MNW/ are too dark. The left vertical stems should be thinner, at least near the diagonal. In your sample the vertical stems don’t vary in contrast, whereas in the book cover there is a tapering towards the diagonal, which gives the glyph more energy and lightens things up a bit.
- That pointy ended top of the stem of /a/ doesn’t really work IMO.
- The modulation of the bowls of /adbpq/ is not as soft as in /CGce/. I would take those as reference.
- The crossbar of /f/ could have the same height as /t/.
- The crossbars of /ft/ are too pointy.
- /L/ looks too narrow to me. I think the width in the book sample was adjusted to compensate for the gap of the /LZ/ pair.
- The terminal of /jgyJ/ is also too pointy. A more rounded terminal would fit the style of the typeface better.
- /Jj/ are too wide, especially /J/.
- /T/ is too narrow.
- The top right serif of /Y/ is too pronounced.
- /z/ looks great!
- Soften the bottom of the left diagonal of /y/ at the bottom corner.

Next time you could set a few alignment zones so that your image samples don’t look so different from the PDF samples ;-)

Didn't expect to get so much feedback so quickly, thanks!

LexLuengas – In answer to your question, I did yes. It was posted a good while ago in the font ID section, although all the comments pertaining to it seem to have since disappeared for some reason. No ID was reached, the closest match being Laudatio.

It doesn't show well in the jpeg but the stub serifs seem to vary slightly between the same letters and the Z in Zurich and Solzhenitsyn are quite different which led me to believe it was a piece of custom lettering rather than a typeface. The book is a 1976 edition.

Just managed to work my through the rest of the feedback ha. All of which is helpful.

Both of you seem to say it'd be better to ease off on the slightly pointy nature of it so far, that being the top of the t, the jgyJ terminals or the crossbars. That was probably me trying to force something which didn't quite fit into it..

Do you think that by raising the crossbar of the f I would have to raise the terminal and probably the ascender height as well? Which would probably feed into the position of the i dot as well.

And did you mean to take the bowls of the 'CGce' as a reference?

Sorry about the sample images... Alignment zones will be learned and used for when I've reworked it. I'll try and make some of these changes in the next day or two.

Thanks!

Do you think that by raising the crossbar of the f I would have to raise the terminal and probably the ascender height as well?

Test, then we’ll see. Sounds all like coherent decisions, but you’re looking too far into the future ;-)

Looking at it for the second time, I agree the ascenders may be a tad too short and Bob’s suggestion may be worth giving a try.

And did you mean to take the bowls of the 'CGce' as a reference?

Uh, yes. I didn’t realize I was being vague. Try keeping the smoothness of the bowls of /CGce/, especially at the bottom where it approaches the stem (it will of course bend more than in those reference characters, but I think you can still reflect its "speed" of thinning).