Hi Sam
You should think about the pen-metaphor used in the construction of the characters. Take for instance K and compare it to the other charaters - it's upside down. In general you should be more consequent with the stem- and stroke widths. Compare eg. M with V. The S is really out of character with the rest, and I think it's because you try to force the squarish concept. Other characters that suffer somewhat from this are BCG.

Hi Sam, as a first attempt your Meridian is very promising. I do think you might want to have a look at the upper-right corners of letters such as BCDEGOPQR, to me the curve looks too steep. Same thing with the upper-left corners of HIJKLMNUVWXY.

Also, I know it’s hard to come up with font names but if you intend to put out Meridian on the retail market I think you’d be better off renaming it to something else to avoid confusion with Adrian Frutiger’s own Meridien.

(BTW: I’ve been in Liverpool for a couple of days last month, nice city!)

Thanks to you both for your comments. It sounds like I have a lot of work to do.

Clauses - I'm obviously a real novice at this as I can't even understand/see what you mean when you say the "K" is upside down?
I understand the problem with the Stem and Stroke widths so I'll start working on that first.

Verbosus - When you say "the curve looks too steep" do you mean that the radius should be tighter (smaller/more square) or bigger (more round)?
I'm not thinking of this becoming commercial at this stage but thanks for letting me know about the other font name. And if you're ever in Liverpool again, you're welcome to visit my studio.

Sam

Hi Sam. In the K the arm should be thin and the leg should be thick, not the other way around. That would be the logical outcome of using a broadnip pen to draw the letterforms – think calligraphy.

There is a very good website about typedesign by Briem here: http://briem.ismennt.is/2/2.3.1a/2.3.1.01.notes.htm

and a good guide on handwriting/calligraphy here: http://briem.ismennt.is/4/4.1.1a/4.1.1.1.quick.htm

Hope it helps...

Claus,
I will read the link - it looks just what I need.
Thanks for clarifying the K issue.
Sam

Hi Sam.

Some of your curves (let's take for instance G top right) are not italicised. They are just round. And they clash with italic form of your characters.

Some of the letters are nice like: A,D,E,F,H,I,J,L,M,N,W,X,Y and Z. Others need more work to complement the later.

Thanks Litera, I'll take that on board in the next revision.
Sam

>I’ve only been working in Illustrator at this point because I don’t have any Font software yet (Are there any advantages to working in a specialist font application at this early stage of the design process?).

I'm not a pro of drawing letters, lots of typophile members are great one, but at my point of view, That depends on your objective. If it is to draw a complete typeface family I' strongly suggest to use a drawing typeface software, you'll take advantage of it's special feature. If it's to draw some letter for a logo, without any objective of getting a typeface you could continue with Illustrator. I've made the switch from Illustrator to Fontlab, two years ago and I never regret my choice. I continue to work with Illustrator for some specific needs in illustration, but for the typeface I work on, my typeface drawing software is really suit for. For instance, with FL, you'll be able to fix the kerning, the spacing or hinting, some action that Illustrator can not do. Hoping that will help you. Good luck.

Thanks Sim, I'll check out the software.

Regarding your concern that this design might already exist, I am not sure it pays to worry overly about that. Just learn how to see the forms and get them working together - that's a big enough challenge. And in the case of fonts with this style generally it's a standard that is rarely met. Quality always wins.