Nice font, Nick! Very smooth and round.

Pretty clever! And a nicely-made PDF.
My only complaint is that the explanatory text is claiming
too much credit here and there. But the font itself is dandy.

hhp

Someone notify Robert Wyatt.

Fluffy !
It evokes sympathy to me !

*grumble*

It looks like a competent version of Gohan, but not as wiggly.

Thanks for your comments.
This is a bit premature, as the launch is scheduled for next month, intended to be co-ordinated amongst all Shinntype distributors and the media.

Sorry. I got a Veer email with Softmachine in it & I thought that the launch was underway... PS Gohan is clearly not in the same league.

Congratulations, Nick. Really innovative and ingenious, with the ideas of a design for outline, and contextual alternatives to make it work. Impressive.

I got the Veer email also—they launched today.

No worries Eben — and thanks for your support — there was a mix-up with Veer.

Now that’s a font that will save designers a LOT of time.

Sorry Nick. I didn’t mean to insult you with a false comparison. I just noticed a couple similar character shapes. Indeed Gohan is not in the same league. It is not even in the same sport.

Indie fonts included a version of Softmachine and it is so cool. But my favorite Shinn type right now is Handsome Pro. I’m using it for short, descriptive text on a website I’m making and I love it.

Sharon

Nick, I apologize. I was certain that the launch date was early March based on the communication with Zoe. I hope this doesn’t cause too much of a problem. I must have been over excited by the face.

Someone notify Robert Wyatt.

Yes, I did swipe the name, but so did the Softs...

The face itself is adapted from an all-cap design with uniform fit, Monkey, that I did for FontHaus in the mid-90s, with the application of the outlining idea that I started to experiment with in Alphaville Outline. I don’t recall being directly influenced by that “Five” album cover in the design of the face, but it certainly pointed me to an appropriate name.

Nice job Nick. With 450 glyphs and 4884 kerns this might help explain why the free-fonts movement will never take over.

Someone notify Robert Wyatt.
Yes, I did swipe the name, but so did the Softs…

The face itself is adapted from an all-cap design with uniform fit, Monkey, that I did for FontHaus in the mid-90s, with the application of the outlining idea that I started to experiment with in Alphaville Outline. I don’t recall being directly influenced by that “Five” album cover in the design of the face, but it certainly pointed me to an appropriate name.

“5” is the rare one—pretty jazzy. Yeh, I didn’t want to notify Bill, but a cup of tea with Robert would be a dream come true. His solo work I much prefer to the softies or Matching Mole ; ) Anyway, nice work Mr. Nick Shinn.

Thanks James.
Did you catch “Winged Migration”?

Yes I did. A good match. Mr. Wyatt does the elements so well, turning water or air into sound.

Did you pick up a copy of “Cuckooland”?

Nick,
Congrats on this! Very well done as well as a stroke of genius :-)

ChrisL

Nice Nick. I love to see typefaces that really push the envelope with OpenType!

From “Dutch Type”, a related, if more primitive (?) idea:

hhp

Yes, the old “tight but not touching” typositor setting, but touching (!)
Here’s a classic example of a tight-setting type design, and the way it relates to layout; from 1969, art director Woody Woodward.

Faces like this and Advert are spaced tightly, and may be designed for tight setting, but aren’t designed specifically for outlining — note how the angle of A and W are different, and the splayed legs of Advert’s M.
Round edges definitely help.

I don’t think tight/touching per se is what’s interesting here. Advert isn’t meant for algorithmic outlining, but apparently it is meant to be layered, which is closely related, as can be seen in that illustration; and most significantly here, it’s spaced to that end. One might even think that if they had OT back then it would have had contextual spacing as well. We are talking about Letterror - well, half of it, but that’s still plenty. :-)

hhp

Your point on the affinity of layering and outlining is well made.

Advert wasn’t initially designed for layering, the Rough is a “product extension”. It takes the basic letterforms, grunges them, and revises the metrics. But the process doesn’t go the next step and revise the letter forms, which could have been done without OT. In fact, the combination r_t in the word “Advert” is a prime candidate for changing to look more consistgently “outlined” in layering.

I had thought about a family for Softmachine, but decided that it’s OK to be single, like Impact.

> the process doesn’t go the next step and revise the letter forms

Isn’t that something any good type designer always does, even for basic designs? I would expect JvR to have done that (which of course is not to say it’s not possible to disagree with his particular decisions). The interesting thing about Softmachine is that it makes this basic design principle contextual (which does require OT). This is something Eben has been talking about, although it’s always nicer to see it actually hit the ground.

> it’s OK to be single

Fonts without italics, I actually admire - but a gradation of weights is quite useful in my mind - although to some extent Softmachine has that “built-in” (even though I worry about the effects of “blind” tracking to compensate for any weight gain via outlining). BTW, a really nice font with weights only is Stone’s Silica:
http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/agfa/silica/

hhp

The amount of stroke will act as a weight variable as well.

ChrisL

That’s what I was referring to when I said that people will often use tracking
to offset such weight gain, conceivably throwing off the careful kerning.

hhp

Sometimes you have to trust that a user has the skill to use it well. Those who don’t, are going to do crap anyway so you might as well do it for the good ones.

ChrisL

But I thought you do your spacing first and then add the kerning, right?
I mean because you don’t want to assume kerning will always be available.

hhp