I'd be very interested in learning what makes this "female"?

hhp

this typeface is based on female proportions... all of the characters are narrow at the top and wider at the bottom to emulate the fact that women have narrower shoulders and wider hips than men
I wanted to eliminate descenders to keep the forms bulbous.

this typeface will also have a series of "snap-on serifs" that will show changes in American women's history. the base font (women) stays the same, while as history (the snap on serifs) continue to add more and more facets to women.

I think this is an interesting idea - I'm personally very interested in seeing how anthropomorphism can be incorporated into type. But there's one key thing I think you're missing: for it to work it has to be very very subtle. As a designer it's hard to restrain one's abilities to implement an idea as strongly as possible - but controlling what people won't see is fundamental. I would suggest starting by taking an "elemental" font (I like to use Lucida) and seeing how you can bend it to convey something - not convey literally, but more implicitly.

The other thing is that the thinner your strokes the more you're limiting the smallest size the font can actually be used at.

BTW, it's not easy making a descender-less font - look at Hobo for some inspiration. (Any others, guys? And gals? :-)

--

The "snap-on" stuff is cool. It seems to go way beyong anything like it I've seen (including Carter's Walker), by letting you add things like stroke contrast - pretty ingenious.

hhp

...or just plain crazy.

Would anyone in the class that's making all these "high-concept" fonts like to tell me what program they're using that implements these "snap-on serifs" that aren't necessarily serifs? How do they work? I've never heard of such a thing before.

The preeminent "snap-on" font is Matthew Carter's custom design for the Walker Art Center:

http://www.themicrofoundry.com/other/walker.gif
http://www.themicrofoundry.com/other/walker2.gif

In that case the snap-ons are indeed serifs, but they don't have to be. Basically you could make any sort of add-ons (with shapes assigned to keystrokes), and as long as you maintain the advance-widths of the base glyphs you can overlay them nicely.

hhp

How'd you get your mits on Walker, Hrant?

Well, I don't have the font. But some years ago I was writing a review of TypeCon98, and I asked for a specimen from Carter (who was the "pricipal speaker" at that cornerstone conference).

hhp

Hello, Lacey. Welcome to Typophile.

This is fun and quirky. I think the best way to get a feel for any font is to see it in action. Can you set a paragraph for us? I think the top of the _s_ needs to go over to the right a bit further.

You mean besides the fact that Lacey, a female, designed it?

:D

That is how I read it anyway. Hehe!

Lacey, have you considered each variation having different proportions? This would reflect the fact that all women are proportioned differently.

I really like your g