Typophile

Electric Bicycle Company Text Font

Robby Woodard0 votes

I was working on a logo for an electric bicycle company and after drawing the few glyphs needed for the logo, I thought it would be interesting to flesh out the whole font. I was thinking that making the tops and bottoms of the glyphs line up horizontally with no overshoots would give the thing a lot of forward momentum. And I am hoping it might work well as a web font (for not real large copy blocks) since there will need to be very little hinting. I am liking it but it is still early in the design stage so it's a good time for a critique.

K, k: Pull in the arm and/or push out the leg.

I like the font with something new around every bend - but the overall pattern is square. No problem - vehicles such as bikes with square wheels are technically possible! Really:
http://cyberneticzoo.com/walking-machines/1954-square-walking-wheel-albe...

I actually like the way the strokes of the k's are flush right. But I agree there is something a little uncomfortable about them.

I have increased the angle of the arms a bit and I think they look more K-ish now.

I may push them around a bit more when I look at everything in context.

Thanks, Vladimir. The engineers I am working with got a kick out of the square wheels link.

The supporting graphics all around this font will be round, round, round. I thought a square based font would contrast that. And I was hoping that the sharp edged base lines and cap and x heights might give a strong sense of horizontal motion. Or speed even.

Instead of wheels, I was kind of basing the letter shapes on the tubing that bicycle frames are made from. Evenly weighted strokes with apparent geometric circular bends.

"Apparent" being the key word. I know actual geometric circles coming off straight edges look abrupt and need to be adjusted optically. I had to do a LOT of that kind of adjusting with these shapes and I did it mostly by feel.

I was wondering if there was any agreed upon formula for these kind of optical adjustments or does everybody just futz with things until they feel right?

BTW, Vlad, I LOVE your magical pen stereoscopic drawings! Is there anywhere I might see more of them?

Of course I was only kidding about a wheel-like font. One does not want to be too literal like in this bicycle font!
http://www.wielertaal.nl/2011/02/16/bicycle-font-bicycle-typogram/
Thanks about the 3D work!

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