mdta smile typeface

mdta7 Jan 2008

Its been a good few years since I posted here. I was dabbling my toes into the typeface pool by editing the Myriad letterforms for a personal logo and typeface.

Well I have recently decided to make a new logo with a custom drawn typeface, this time without using an existing font as a basis.

I originally just designed the letters m d t a, and then went on to make the other letters for the words design and media and thats where it stood, until I decided to do the remaining letters for fun, and then numerals and basic punctuation followed.

Now half a year later, I have started redrawing the letters and making a more complete version. I have done the most work with the bold letterforms as that is what the logo is made from. I have done lowercase, uppercase, smallcaps, 2 forms of numerals, and some simple punctuation.

I have also started work on a regular version of the typeface, and I have only done the lowercase, and some uppercase with that one.

So far these are just lettershapes in Corel Draw, I would like to form it into a font with fontlab at some point, but I am not comfortable with fontlab's drawing tools, as I usually use corel draw, and feel that the vector shapes seem more solid and maliable, but I guess I will have to change if I want a working font from it.

Anyway, I am talking too much, so take a look at the PDFs and please offer me some comments and criticism on how to improve it, while I am at this early stage, oh also, I have some alternative characters made which I would like to include in the font also, and a whole selection of Q designs. Most of the lettershapes are based around the o design, which is a slightly squared off geometric circle.

Attachment	Size
smile-old.pdf	130.74 KB
new-smile-wip.pdf	182.25 KB
FL Sample-mdta smile logo.pdf	36.1 KB
sample.pdf	23.18 KB

Ken Messenger9 Jan 2008#

I like it. Reminds me of Peter Bruhn's Mustardo. I think you could do without the counter dots. Not really a point to them other than having been in the original logotype. Also I think the B is a little disproportioned. I'd make it slightly more even.

mdta9 Jan 2008#

How do you mean, disproportioned, is it in the width of the two bowels?

mdta - Martin Anderson

Ken Messenger9 Jan 2008#

Yes, the upper bowl feels just a bit too small to me.

Darrin Crescenzi11 Jan 2008#

I'm thinking the overhang on all three "s" characters is a bit much... they feel off-balance, and not in the quirky intentional way that some of the other characters do. I second what Ken says about the dots, I don't think you're gaining much and when you use this as a typeface they will become a distraction. Plus, they're a great way to set the logo and text apart.

It's nice though, I like it a lot. The small caps in particular work for me.

mdta12 Jan 2008#

So the straight edges on the S's should be brought inwards? Those were the toughest for me to draw :)

I have started drawing the letters in fontlab directly, instead of moving the ones from Corel, so once I have all the lowercase done, I will do a pdf. I have never done a sample sheet before, so I may find an example of one and use that, would there be a problem with me doing that, I wouldn't want to offend anyone...

mdta - Martin Anderson

mdta17 Jan 2008#

I have edited the first post to include a sample of the font printed from Fontlab

At the moment it is only the lowercase, with ligatures, stylistic alternatives, and stylistic alternative ligatures :)

Also I have not yet started work on metrics, so they use a default setting of 0 left sidebearing, 50 right sidebearing

mdta - Martin Anderson

Bendy17 Jan 2008#

I like this! I find the H too narrow, and C, S and s slightly too wide.
I prefer the curvy y.
Can we see some text in paragraphs?
:)

mdta28 Jan 2008#

I have added a sample with sentences, I hope its ok for everyone. Spacing is not finalised, and not all uppercase is complete

mdta - Martin Anderson

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