Why no roundimgs n the 'z' and 'e'?

--jacques

I like it.
It would be interessting to see the movie later on.

Do the two variations and show them here: one with "roundings" only, and the other one with Z & E:s kind of "straightness" at the whole logo.

All in all it all depends on the overall concept of the movie as you mentioned.

(maybe show some snapshots ?)

hmm, a little confused by the 'roundings' you both are referring to. I'm assuming you are meaning, why are those corner points of the z and e more of a broad round angle?

If that is what you mean, on earlier iterations I did that and the Z looked like a 2. So I wanted to accentuate the angle a bit more for that to stand out. Plus I think it adds a little bit more character.

thanks, perhaps I will revisit....

okay...I rounded out those joints. I had to decrease the width of the whole thing so that it would adjust for the curves.

which one do you think?

I think rounding it out was a good idea, jacques

had to fix those joints a bit:

Nice one.

My comments: make the top f ending a bit more longer, it will win in legibility and make the word more strong in the start of it.

and try to make u asymetric: right bottom curve of it, like the angular top right e.

Oups, I miss to say that you need also to correct optically vertically the f and u (increase the weight of them).

Jean,

Increase the weight or height of the F and U?

Wouldn't increasing the weight of the one of the letterforms throw off the harmony overall?

Thanks for your comments.

Peter,

I think what he's getting at is this:
It looks like you've made this by drawing a line in
illustrator, then adding weight to it (with rounded corners,
and ends). This means that all parts of the characters are
the same width. However optically, verticals look skinny
compared to horizontals of exactly the same size. So you
have two options, 1) make all the horizontals fatter or 2)
make the verticals skinnier. JFP's suggestion is a good one,
fix the verticals because there's only three of them, the f
and the left and right parts of the u.

You can go crazy here, because in reality optical
adjustments arent just for horizontals and verticals. What
about diagonals? Think of a circle. Thinnest at top, thicker,
thicker thicker thicker Thickest at the middle and thinner
again on the bottom. So diagonals should also fall
somewhere in between. Hope that made some sense. It
won't need much to make it look optically right.
Just a pinch.

Randy

But note that the degree of optical compensation depends very much on the scale of application.

hhp

Randy,

Thanks for explaining that. Makes total sense.

Hrant, duly noted

I'll link up the movie when it gets finished. Should be pretty sweet.

Thanks for all your help.

How so? Is it not an issue of percentage? 5% differnce will
appear small in a small application and large in a large
application.

I guess what I'm asking is: when something gets small the
% difference must go up? Is this driven by loss of fidelity in
reproduction? (ie. like a hinting problem?)

R

> when something gets small the % difference must go up?

Exactly.
And it's an optical thing.

For example, a [good] display face has less overhang in the rounds than a [good] text face.

hhp

Randy,

thanks to help me on my comment!

To learn what value optically you need to adjust between horizontal and vertical:

Draw a rectangle, multiply it by 2, one horizontal, one vertical, then adjust the one you want to achieve booth in same "color." Then, you will know what kind of value you can start to do such corrections in your future jobs.

I really don't think that the "using size" change something, its more how you see it, nobody see it in same way. In my case, I found 80% of serif typefaces have too thinner vertical in N and V, etc.!!!!

These are valuble facts guys, you've been putting here.

Maybe the "end" of the lines could be straightened or "polyfaced" to take away the "done in illustrator" kind of feeling.

Also, just as a variation, or possible solution, increese the angle of some of the corners, this will perhaps go together with "Z/2" and "E":s straightfulness.

It seems these curves I point to, look like a little bump on the top of the e, why not make them a single curve? maybe it's just my eyes.

I wrote:
> the degree of optical compensation depends very much on the scale of application.

This was admittedly a bit of (educated?) "theoretical" guesswork (as opposed to something gleaned from practice, since I've yet to make any optically corrected type), but I just found some great backup:

In Harry Carter's translation of Fournier's landmark "Manuel Typographique", a note at the beginning of chapter XIX ("Alignment") says:

"
To satisfy the eye at 6-pt. o has to be about one-eighth taller than the x, a 12-pt. one-twelfth, a 36-pt. one-fifteenth, and a 72-pt. one-eighteenth. The amount of difference required varies with the degree of extension of the type and the shape of the shading*.
"

(BTW, "shading" here means stroke stress, I think.)

It sure is great to have the old guys confirm your hunches!

hhp