The Black weight is interesting, but the Regular looks a lot like Verdana.

-- omine.net

I see Verdana as well. Although, your typeface could look like a lot worse. Did you reference Verdana as you designed this? It almost seems like a normalized -- not for screen -- verison of Verdana.

I see what you mean, it looks to be a bit more condensed and tighter fit Verdana. The lc m gives the illusion that the left and right half are not the same width?

ChrisL

I like the overall feel of the type, even though it indeed seems like a slightly narrower, slightly heavier Verdana. The shapes of the bowl though, and the way they connect to the stems is beautiful and a subtle way of showing its own face.
Too bad it doesn't have a proper, real, italic. That together with small caps and old style figures would really finish it off.

Look after Goodness & Truth
& Beauty will look after itself

There are some problems with terminal angles which are especially pronounced in the heavier weights. Also, some glyphs have balance issues; the "8" looks like it's about to fall over to the left.

Looking very closely, there are some weight problems in the curves in all weights of "S", "s", and "ß". Also, the "perfection of construction" of the "V-Y" and "v-y" isn't helping those letters; the interior angles should be a little be greater to visually equalise the stroke weights. The X and x seem to be horizontally and vertically flipped, so the letters appear top heavy.

On the last page, check out the big "can" in the second line. Besides the right side of the "c" needing some fine-tuning, it also needs a little less sidebearing.

Hope I don't sound too harsh. This is pretty nice work, but there are some issues which stand between Herma and greatness.

thanks for your input. overall, without making any excuses, we had little time and even less experience, when we churned the thing out. i wonder whether the client would be open for a revised version after a year or so...

regarding the verdana: yes, there was some inspiration there. i feel the verdana is actually a very nice font at small sizes, the larger it gets the more it looses its beauty. and the task for HERMA was to create a single font that works both large size and large amounts of copy.

i had noticed the balance issue on the 8, but had found no elegant way to correct that. some of the other details you mentioned i honestly hadn't noticed as being grave. for me the type was part of the overall corporate design package, and i was worried about the overall feel. now that it's out, i wish i had spent a little more time "tweaking".

go ahead - keep criticising!

Curtze, thanks for taking my critique in the manner in which it was intended. This type has potential, and for a fresh creation by designers with little experience, it is very good indeed.

Did you start with any font's outlines, or was everything drawn "from scratch"?

»Did you start with any font’s outlines, or was everything drawn “from scratch”?«

initially i wanted to merely find a good type for the corporate design, and started playing around with the verdana shapes to get some idea of what i was looking for. i knew i wanted a less generic character but a similar feel with body type.

i also had a good look at nuri and faceplate, but neither qualified as corporate font. and of course thesis sans is always good to use. so overall i can't really say i worked from scratch, and i did no drawing on paper at all.

cheers,
curtze

Pretty decent. Just needs some polish,
something a "dedicated" type designer
would be best at.

> large amounts of copy.

FYI, no can do, with a sans.

hhp