http://logofontandlettering.com/pages1.html

http://logofontandlettering.com/pages4.html

Bit small to see, the book is worth getting as well.

http://briem.ismennt.is/2/2.3.4a/2.3.4.47.cap.s.htm

http://briem.ismennt.is/2/2.3.4a/2.3.4.26.bold.s.htm

Tim

Science measures what nature provides. Sometimes a mathematical measure is far more complicated than just providing it naturally. Do a lot of drawing of the s and get inside of it. You may have a better idea of what the mathmatital measurements you get are all about—you may even pass on the math :-)

ChrisL

The main ~ shaped part (inner curve) made with no. 4 (max. 6) nodes (end points) smooth connection (straight handles) equal length control vectors ?

Equal length of control vectors does not improve the geometric qualities of the spline, I am afraid. It seems to be one of the most widespread fallacies.

If your curve looks somehow wrong or discontinuous you almost always need to shift the position of the actual nodes. Fiddling about with the control points does not help.

Tim

Previous discussion:

http://typophile.com/node/13036

see particularly John Hudson’s interesting contribution.

Really useful stuff & the previous thread was quite comforting to me (not being the only person with this problem) ;-)
Thanks guys!

as a novice, my input may not be as valuable as those above... then again...

The Briem site is terrific. His advice to draw the damned thing again and again...

and again...

is right on. I must have drawn 20 esses before i got to one i was ready to settle on... at least until i get back to balancing weights and such. The following samples each have 10 bezier pts.

If they don’t look much different to you, again, M. Briem has the right advice. sit. look at them. and then look at them some more. I take a printed page of chars with me when i ride to the beach every day. and look at them.

Once i got to where i like the basic shape, I removed the points from the top and bottom of the bowls and from the mid stroke and added points to the outsides of the bowl strokes, resulting in 8 points which gave me better control of the weight and curvature.

of course, this is a pretty simple shape.

geo.

Tim Ahrens, I didn’t mean and write “symmetrical”, I was just thinking of the left-right side of the black, thanks for the ’spline’ term, and William Berkson, thank you for the link to the previous discussion with John Hudson’s contribution, I also enjoy tech/creative English language skills very much.

It’s sooooo much easier with Cornu spirals, which have a smooth and natural “S” shape built-in. Crap, I just realized that I first posted about that on Typophile two freakin’ years ago, and still haven’t gotten to the point where I can talk about my secret project openly. Ah well.

raph! welcome back! where’ve you been?