Typophile

mdta Sans and mdta Serif - Both Pre-Production

mdta

Hello, this is my first post here, and my first attempt at a full typeface I can use for my own 'image'. I started by taking Myriad Pro, and using FontLab tranformations to round the corners. I soon realised this wasnt enough for the look I needed, so taking some basic inspiration, I began drawing some characters and playing around to get the look right.

Unfortunatly I am not very experienced with font design, I have a few books, and I have looked at many custom made fonts, to get a feel for characters and proportions. Anyway, I thought I would register and post some samples. I would ideally like to find a font professional who could take my glyphs and make it all work, but I have little cash, and would ideally like to learn it for myself.

This may upset some people, but I design my glyphs to a grid in Corel Draw, the shapes just seem more solid to me rather than FontLab itself or of course Illustrator. I have trouble getting the glyphs I perfect in Corel to import perfect in FontLab or FontLab Studio, but for now, I would like some advice, criticism, or even some harsh words said to me, about my designs so far.

Attached is a PDF of the letter shapes I have drawn to demonstrate the look I want, as well as a gif for those who dislike PDF, I have also posted an example of the first version, the Edited Myriad I used for my personal logotype...

AttachmentSize
serif-sans-test.pdf23.36 KB
mdta-sample-01.gif12.71 KB
mdta-old-sample.gif17.7 KB
Héctor Muñoz Huerta

Looks charming and promising, I would like to see more glyphs finished to give some critique.

Héctor

Chris Keegan

I like it so far...

Chris Lozos

You say "my own image" but you don't say what that is. I think you have to define the target before you can see how good your aim is. Also, if this is your own image, why start with an existing typeface particularly one that is so often used that you will not give yourself an identity other than a "just one of the crowd" kind? The point of a custom identity font is that it be unique enough to the entity it represents to establish identity. It is kind of like choosing the name "Store" as a brand name, it says nothing about you and is so common it will be ignored.
Instead of looking for a model to start with like Myriad. Start from scratch and make it you. I know, it is a lot more work--but so is making a good apple pie from scratch more work than getting one out of a vending machine.

ChrisL

ebensorkin

I too would like some additional glyphs to see - but I can say that the heavy weight needs to be adjusted to maintain legibility. Take a look at Univers in diffeent weights - see how the counters don't disappear? And take a looks at :

http://www.typofonderie.com/alphabets/view/CostaPTF

He does it slightlty differnetly but the idea is the same.

Both examples maintain legibility in heavy weights a way that your face won't right now. See why?

ole sørensen

lowercase / sans/ thinner weight "r" has a little work required.

twardoch

BTW, I hope you do realize that re-using other typeface's outlines is only acceptable for learning purposes but you won't be allowed to release or distribute a typeface created that way. Just checking :)

A.

.

What Adam said.

Captured from commoncrawl.org on 21 Apr 2015. original URL