Gohan, revisited

cuttlefish4 Jul 2007

Gohan is a font I came up with back in 2001, just as an exercise in making a heavyweight sans font with some idea about some sort of optical properties inspired by an article I read about a font called Gararond. Well what resulted probably had nothing to do with the ideas that inspired it but it did turn out to be a very bold font that held up remarkably well at small sizes. Still, it had many deep flaws, and clearly was not ready for prime time.

So now I'm taking it upon myself (in the interest of getting used to using FontForge instead of my old reliable Fontographer as much as anything) to redesign much of the font, and once that is covered, to develop book and medium weight versions.

The original is available for free at 1001 Fonts. Works in progress are in the attached PDF files below.

Attachment	Size
pr-Gohan-original.pdf	58.16 KB
pr-ShinGohanSix.pdf	65.6 KB
pr-ShinGohanSix-text9pt.pdf	65.93 KB
pr-ShinGohanSix-text12pt.pdf	66.03 KB
pr-ShinGohanSeven-plain-chlist.pdf	84.55 KB
pr-ShinGohanNine-plain-full.pdf	56.93 KB

cuttlefish5 Jul 2007#

I found a better link for the Gararond if anybody is interested. I don't want my italic to be quite so variable though.

cuttlefish15 Jul 2007#

I've just uploaded the plain derivative: pr-ShinGohanSeven-plain-chlist.pdf
I have the uppercase and half of the lowercase and numerals complete.Once they're all done I'll try setting some sample text.

Anything I'm doing completely wrong here?

popluhv17 Jul 2007#

I enjoy the original "8", have you considered working the "thin-ness" into the other glyphs?

cuttlefish17 Jul 2007#

You'll see a similar thinness in the e, cent, Ø and ø. I too like how it looks in the 8 on its own, but it stands out too much amongst the rest of the font, so I've changed it in the revision.

As I'm progressing through the plain weight, I may have to go back and change more things in the bold to keep them consistent. I only have a few more letters to go in the plain, so a new sample should be up before too long.

cuttlefish18 Jul 2007#

Darn it! I have another update but the uploader won't save my PDF sample.
I'll try again later.

litera19 Jul 2007#

Had the same problem myself. Do it in IE or instead clicking on "attach" simply click "submit"... And it'll upload you new attachment.

cuttlefish19 Jul 2007#

IE hasn't been updated since v5.2 and is no longer availabl esince some 4 years ago. I'm using Camino just as I always have and this is the first time I've had that problem.

But it seems to be working fine today. New update at the bottom of the attachments list.

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