Well sir, I don't know quite what you mean by 'vanilla' but
I'll give ye a bit of feedback anywho.

f - something wrong with the crossbar, too light?
o- seems too heavy to me, sticks out a bit.
k- too heavy as well
j - I'd sharpen up the tail a bit, it seems too blunt.
p- the bowl is a tad askew, it looks a little odd.
Q- the tail looks like it's flapping in the breeze.

Overall it is rather cohesive and pleasant on the eye.
Having said this, I didn't print it out, I'm still waiting for the
bloody thing to arrive.

Hallo Christian,

No criticism about that, looks good, except one thing your uppercase D is a bit too consistent and so looks odd.

Perhaps you also should think about your uppercase P and R, for my taste they look too much like "copy and paste from the B".
You could correct the counterform of the P and thicken the Crossbar of the R

Servus

Dominik

P.S.: It is "Joyce" not "Joice".

I love the characters (especially "J" and "C"), but the character spacing seems off.

Christian, this looks really nice.

The X and x(esp.) really lean to the left.

c, e - look good in text but look like they might be leaning too much to the right.

K - the upper arm appears too short and consequently looks like it is falling.

O - Looks a little too small and black. probably okay for the Q (though i agree with kris that the Q tail looks like it's flapping in the breeze. I like its shape but maybe closer to the form above and moved to the left?

The stomach of the D is cool, but it's alarming me here.

In your text setting a looks like it has too much space after. Especially ar and an but at is okay and al...but then you might not even be at this stage yet.

Jon

Vanilla transitional, eh? I guess there's a limit to how much chocolate oldstyle I can consume... :-)

I think it's pretty cool. It seems to have some Times and some Rotis in it, but it's clearly original too. The only "macro" thing I'd change is pull in the descenders a hair. Some "micro" stuff:
- The "J" seems out of character.
- I like the "K"! Very self-assured.
- The "t" needs a stronger right side.

And yeah, the spacing needs mucho trabajo.

hhp

I smoothed out some lumpiness, and added some
rudementary spacing (no kerning yet). The previous spacing
was InDesign optical (they tend to do better on the sans).
Thanks for the comments. I've incorporated a bunch into
this version (I even changed the spelling of Joyce--oops).
I never really liked the Q. It's too presumptuous for vanilla.
I switched it for something a little more appropriate. I've
only got six or seven hours in this experiment so far, but
I think I will definitely use it for my next paper--I just need
to add some figures, an italic, small caps and more
punctuation...

Hrant--good call on the Times reference. I did look at it
quite a bit. I wanted it to feel a little more up to date,
though (hence, Rotis, I guess, though I wouldn't have
thought of that).

Ulysses PDF Sample 2 ulysses_2.pdf (35.4 k)

Nice overall improvement. Although the spacing is too tight now - your very high stroke contrast puts a strong limit on tightness.

> Rotis .... I wouldn't have thought of that

I figured the Rotis angle was unintended (or unconscious?), but check out the "full-serif" cut - some of the glyphs (like the "f") are really very close (but in a good way).

hhp

It's looking great, Christian. Out of curiosity, how do you find time to school, design type and sleep?

:-)

Jon

How do I find time? It's kind of an obsessive compulsive
thing. I design to escape what I should really be doing. Also,
I write all my papers about type design : )

Yeah, what Stephen said. Let's have some of those papers.

Wishing I had more compulsion. I think I'm all right on the obsession part.

Jon

I would be embarassed to show my school papers, hurridly
written and fraught with inaccuracies. Then again, I keep
posting my first revision fonts that are equally unpolished.

I added some figures and some refinement to the spacing.
The numerals are still a little lumpy. I'm starting to think
that this font isn't nearly as vanilla as I had hoped. I can't
help but add some quirks.

Tiffany--I didn't graduate when I should have. I recently
reapplied and am finishing a few generals.

Ulysses PDF Sample 3 ulysses_4.pdf (25.7 k)

[double]

Don't forget that vanilla is relative.

hhp

Let's have some of those papers, Christian.

Well, for a 'vanilla' it sure looks tasty. I really like how crisp it feels. The thin serifs do a lot.

s --> Looks a bit like it is leaning backward.
p --> The bottom of the bowl is too thin.
k --> The bottom leg is out too far, it seems also might be a bit too heavy.
D --> The bottom might be too thin.

Christian, I thought you had graduated.