This has a very nice degree of flavor.
And although I don't usually like filled-in corners, here it works!

I would say that:
- The "Q" needs modulation in the tail join.
- The "a" is too... continental. Try a Kabel form.
- The bottom half of the "s" is malformed.

hhp

Thank you, Hrant!

You're definitely right about the "a", it looks like the afterthought it is. Originally I had a one storey-"a", but that is boring (and illegible, and makes the "æ" impossible). It didn't feel right, but I didn't know what I was looking for. Thanks for telling me. The Q is stolen from Jakob Erbar's sadly forgotten geometric (much used in the 30s up here), and you're right, it doesn't work. I'll think of something else. Those s-es are the most difficult glyphs I've ever drawn. The simplest shapes are the hardest. I'll try and fix it.

This any better? New "a", reshaped "s", modulated "Q" (while maintaining the shape, I think I misunderstood your advice.)

Cool project, and I'm right with you on feeling pressed to finish something a bit simpler.

In a way this is quite a difficult design to critique, since almost anything criticizable is equally likely an error or part of the deliberate naivete!

I definitely agree on the /a/.

I think sixes and nines may be *too* constructed looking, in their lack of tapering at the join and their sudden changeover from circle to line. Fours might need some more overshoot up top.

BDPR also have too hard of a break from straight to round on the outside contours.

Did you consider a counter on the R that was open at the bottom? That'd be another place where that acute angle could show up.

Did you consider a chevron-style structure for /K/ (and, I suppose, for /k/)? That might go with the /M/ well.

The diagonal of /N/ looks thin to me.

I wonder if the /G/ is a stylistic misfit in the way the /a/ is. Did you try any versions with crossbars? Euro also feels rather out of place.

That sliced off /t/ seems awfully arbitrary in a font where every other terminal hews to horizontal or vertical. Reminds me of Arial, too. :-(

The spacing seems way too tight in the text setting, given the boldness, lack of contrast, and small x-height. I'm sure you haven't done much work with spacing at this stage, but I think it would be good to be able to determine fairly soon how legitimate the hopes of making this a font for running text are - and to judge that it needs some breathing room.

This reminds me not only of Neutraface but even more of Tempo. Here's one of several interesting Typophile threads on the latter.

Seriously. Impressive.
Let me come back to this in a day or two.
And, BTW, I also long to finish something ;)

Very very cool. I was going to say it over in the other thread too. I don't really have enough time to give it a thorough look right now :-\ but just wanted to stop by and say that this is niiice.
Just 2 spontaneous things:
Is it intentional that the "D" is that narrow compared to "C" and "G"?
And the new "a" rocks! The old one was a bit Frutigerish.
I'll be back :-)

Thumbs up on the new /a/ and /s/!

Thank you, everyone!

Nina, the narrow "D" was a subconscious decision, I think. I've widened it slightly, just for you. (Er, and because it looks better.) Thanks for good-mouthing the "a". I like it too. It gives the lower case a much stronger identity, I think. Now the "g" and "a" are better friends, too.

Craig, I've subtly softened "69", and made the "4" even taller. Darn, I love drawing spiky glyphs! And I've fought with the BDPR curves quite a bit. These shapes are always difficult for me, too tight, they get an undesirable diamond shape with ugly transitions from the lines, too soft, they look squarish. But I've finally learnt too use points at approximately 45 degrees in addition to extrema points, and that makes the transitions from the lines better, at least. Any better now?

Chevron kays I've tried twice, just can't make them work. Perhaps I'll try again.

I've strengthened the "N" diagonal slightly, and widened the letter half a hair. But this is one of the letters I really want a little "wrong".

Gee, I didn't know Tempo once was a proper typeface, I only knew those nondescript condensed bolds Adobe sell. Thanks for bringing it to my attention, it's great! I think Neutraface is but a parody, by the way. Some may say the same thing about my typeface. Well, at least it's parody that I like.

The "G", yes, that's a misfit. But I really like it. Georg Fredrik Fasting, the architect of the Norwegian telephone box, drew "G"s like that. On an ideological level, there's no other remnant* of the pen in this typeface, why use one here? But of course, it looks weird. I've thought a lot about it, too.

* Except for the slanted "t" top. That's an influence from the old Norwegian street signs, and I just dig it. It should remind you of Erbar, not Arial.

... did I just make the "B" top half and "R" too square?

... did I just make the "B" top half and "R" too square?

I think maybe so.

I've strengthened the "N" diagonal slightly, and widened the letter half a hair. But this is one of the letters I really want a little "wrong".

I think you could go still further and not threaten its "wrongness"! ;-)

You may want to narrow /e/'s crossbar a touch.

BTW this is roughly what I meant about the possibility for /R/:

Very nice. However, I would find it more useful if there were alternate E, F and H's available, with vertically centred crossbars, as well as the low slung ones. And maybe high crossbars too.

Thanks, guys!

Curves are difficult, and the simpler the shape, the more difficult they are. New BPRD here. And Craig, here's your conventional "G", too. And a wider N. There's now also quite a bit of optical tweaking in most of the glyphs shown here.

About your "R" suggestion: I actually tried this twice early in the process, and while I dig this shape, it reminds me very much of (the original) AvantGarde and Herb Lubalin and the 70s, and I discarded it because it felt out of place. Did that R shape exist earlier? I'd love to see an example of that.

Jonathan, you're right about that, but you see, I don't want to make another Futura. I want this to be quirky. The letters that started it were TELEFON (see photograph in the specimen). Maybe I'll make more conventional alternates later, but that'll have to wait.

About the spacing: Perhaps this is a display typeface, I really don't know yet. But if it is, the spacing is quite OK now (though crude) now, isn't it?

Tempo had that kind of R! Or near it. With a little more intersection than my mockup, which steers it away from your legitimate Lubalin concern.

I gotta say, I like the crossbar G.

Curves looking better!

The bolder weights of Dwiggins's Metro #2 also suggest that kind of R structure.
http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/linotype/metro-2/

Just saw this on our dining room table - do you know what font this sans is?

Looking great, Sindre. I'm looking forward to our next type&beer convention at Pers.

?

Might be choking the naïve spirit …

Satyagraha, I understand your concept and wasn't suggesting that you have vertically centred crossbars for the default glyphs.

I've only just seen the telefonkiosk photo in the PDF, and so, as you say ...

"I want this to be quirky."

... you should include that splendid O, with the three stencil splits, as an alternate glyph. Maybe even create a stenciled version of the typeface and name it Telefon Kiosk / Kiosker / Kiosken.

Or you could just include alternate stencil glyphs within the standard OTFont, but only for the characters that would need a stencil form for kiosk application.

I've done some more work on the "R", here are three candidates. The first one is wider, as per Frode's suggestion, the middle one is a slightly reworked version of the old one, the third one is an interpretation of Craig's suggested R (it took me quite a while to understand that shape, thanks for helping enlighten me), which I think probably is my favourite at the moment. What do you think?

Strange how defining the upper case R is! These three settings makes the word look like set in different typefaces, almost.

I've no idea what the typeface of that Vogue cover is (I almost thought it was a mock-up, by the way, as all the headlines are so stereotypically women's magazine that it is laughable. "Love, sex and what to wear", isn't that the essence of all women's magazine headlines?). This is a very good illustration of what Jan Tschichold called "a thicket of letters", by the way. Thanks for scanning and uploading.

I've been wondering about the crossbar "G" (I now think that one has to be the definite version ...), is the crossbar's length and height right? Is it a problem that it is only slightly higher than the "E" and "F" crossbar? Should I raise and/or lengthen it? (Am I getting type blind already?)

Thanks, Frode, and so do I. Type and craft beer are amongst the nicest of man's inventions, and they should indeed be combined.

Jonathan, that is a splendid idea, in fact, I thought of it when I started drawing, and then forgot. I'll go for a full stencil font instead of alternate glyphs, I think, but, as you suggest, only make cuts in the letters that needs them to stay together. This is going to be fun!

There's no question in my mind #3 is the best fit for the face.
I was too lazy to scan - I found that cover with a web search. (A scan would've come out clearer!) I've submitted it to the Type ID board. http://typophile.com/node/66541
I'm not sure about your questions on the G - I'd have to see how those options look.
I like the stencil idea too!

Revised upper case. New "K", as suggested by Craig (does it work?), slightly fatter horizontals on EFLT, a little tweaking on "R", a little wider "N". Does the "G" crossbar look to thick compared to EFH's?

Bear with me, I'm not having much time currently. This is looking really great and I'm struggling to find anything to crit! Well done on making it work so well. Those curves are hard.

I think the latest D is still a bit narrow, or perhaps just the curve is light at 2 and 5 o'clock?

Crossbar of G: to me it looks a smidge too low, like it's trying to be the same as EFH but realised it can't quite get there.

2 looks like the bottom has slid left and the top right, slightly.

5 looks a little heavy on the left stem.

Nice work, Sindre. Is it just me, or does the lower bar in F and the middle bar in E extend just slightly too much to the right?

When extending the leg of the R, be careful to test all combinations to balance spacing with pleasing forms (I'm the first to admire a wide legged R). However, try CRAWDAD STRAW RANDY CRAYON as well as words like TROUBLE CURVY (RIVERDAN) etc. RO RY RA are hard to consistently space with a wide leg, unless you there is a lot of letterspacing.

From memory, I think the Vogue is James Montalbano's work but I might be confusing with Vanity Fair. Anyways, he's done a custom geometric fashion sans somewhat similar to this.

R

What is your method for filing the corners? Lately I have found this effect very pleasing, perhaps too much time looking at vector perfect corners cuts into the eyes.

I'd be careful not to lose the dimensional quirks through iteration.
S is a bit depressed at the base IMHO and the outlines seem shaky compared to the otherwise smooth alphabet.
I keep rotating S as I am drawing, otherwise I tend to run out of space constructing the lower curve.
(This sounds like a contradiction – what I mean is keep the proportional quirks, but execute smoothly. Also, please take my comments lightly as I am very pleased by this design and I don't wish to detract or patronise.)

I assume you mean filling and not filing. In fact I don't have a method for the former because I tend to do the latter! :-) And for that I actually do have a method: http://themicrofoundry.com/ss_trapping1.html

hhp

Hrant, you got me. I actually meant filing, though I did misread your post. By 'filing corners' I meant beveling, for example P22 Johnston. The corners appear soft to me, 1px short of a corner, is this just antialiasing/artefact?
I'm probably going blind. Sorry for misleading anyone.

The trapping flower is amazing, I don't suppose you have any other secrets you would like to disclose? Thanks.

Oh, OK. Yes, it does have rounded corners. BTW, the Flower can be used for making those too, as well as shearing corners. And making thorns (really pointy corners).

I'm often fast and loose with my secrets, although I tend to guard other people's secrets like an Anatolian Mastiff.

hhp

Thank you for all your comments and suggestions! I haven't had time for type drawing this weekend, so I'll just comment now and upload images and stuff later.

Thanks for your kind words, Ben. You're probably right about the "D". It needs to be narrow, I think, but a few more units of width and some more meat in the curves will make it right. Your comment on the "G" confirms my own concerns about that glyph. Consider "2" and "5" fixed.

Thanks, Elias, and no, it's not just you, the middle bars of E and especially F are too long, but I think they really have to be. Their eccentricity sort of defines the whole typeface. Then again, someone good once said "kill your favourite glyph" or something like that. I'll have to think about it.

Thanks for your advice, Randy. I've decided on the "R" now, and your spacing words will come in handy.

Andrew, the corners are both filled and filed, and my method is quite straightforward. For this typeface, I made 10x10 bevels, and then I convert the sharp points to curved ones. I probably could use some script, but I prefer doing it by hand. Quite a lot of work (and lots of copy and paste), but that's okay with me. I like fiddling.

You're right about the "S", it will be fixed. And thanks for your "S"-making advice.

Here's a closeup showing the inside and outside smoothing.

(Just to second elias (no relation!)) I think you could move the middle E crossbar in just a touch more and maintain its "too long" eccentricity.

"E" and "F" crossbars shorter, "F" a little narrowed. "S" reworked", "D" slightly wider and changed curves.

"2" and "5" changed

Taller "G" crossbar.

Chevron kays.

Try making the top of the "a" much shorter.

hhp

Much shorter "a" top. That made it necessary to do something to the "g" as well. Better?

Great font! I think I found the original one.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_yZmyKiWCBwU/SkJC1Qn9q7I/AAAAAAAAAJ0/GKzZut-yQW...

I think the Kake /a/ fits the character of the font better. Maybe I see the "too long" hood as akin to the "too long" /E/ crossbar. And I'd keep the longer /g/ tail, too. But I can see the new ones working, too; they're nice letters.
I like the chevron /K/k/!

Thanks, Yorel. Yes, that's the Norwegian telephone box, outside the traditional Freia chocolate factory in Oslo. But those are the second generation letters, the original ones were more like mine, with a spiky and narrow "N" and more extreme "E"s and "F". I'll upload a scan from the book later, as there seems to be none of the original letter phone boxes left in the wild.

Thanks, Craig. I'm very unsure about the "a" and the "g" at the moment, I think I like both versions. Perhaps a compromise is the solution. Can't draw now, will upload later.

Complete lower case. "a" and "g" almost at old length, but not quite. New "r", "j" and "f", (curved finials ... is that the right word?), slightly more weight on the "z" diagonal. Slightly shallower descenders.

Looking great. IKEA should've waited on their rebranding font choice! :-)

/v/ looks both light and insufficiently overshot on the baseline to me.

Tell me what's guiding your extender length decisions. I'm surprised you're pulling up the descenders with such (appealingly) high ascenders.

I especially like the /n/, the /i/, the /f/, and the /z/. That question mark strikes me as too close to Futura (Telefon's got its own quirks, it doesn't need to copy Renner's!).

The /y/ feels like it's falling rightward, and the intersection seems high relative to the baseline to my eyes. Perhaps just shifting the long stroke's bottom points rightward while retaining the angle of the short stroke would solve both issues.

I wonder if all of your vertical strokes should be thinned the tiniest bit. Looking at "squaw," the /q/'s stem seems darker than the rest; and the vertical-dominated "litt" is the darkest word of all. (Some of this could be rasterization...)

My biggest issue with this design, is the one letter devoted the most attention here: “a”. It might fit historically, but I think it would keep me from using Telefon in any serious context. The echoed short curve from “a” in “g” might work.

Can we see the “R” in context? I didn’t like it at first, but it’s growing on me.

Btw, Sindre: I think “c” might need a few units nudging to the left on the outer curve (top and bottom left).

I agree about 'a', I think with this design it is OK to embrace anachronisms.

Hello again, Sindre-

I went through your posts, and 'a' does need some work still (you decided to go with two-storey after all [heh]), and '?' is pretty lopsided. The stresses seem to be going the wrong way. Also some of the smooth corners on counters seem softer than outside, like in 'A'. That seems odd to me. Try to keep them is scale. And 'S' and 's' have bumps.

Overall look of the font is really good.

Craig, you're right about the vertical weight. I've now sliced a little off each stem, both cases, and I think that procedure have made for a better overall balance. I shortened the descenders because of that blasted "g", I couldn't make it deep enough without making a too large aperture. But perhaps it works now, the descenders are at their original depth again. I've tried to repair the "y", and I've fattened and tweaked the "v" a bit.

Frode, what kind of "a" would you prefer? I'm going to have a one-storey one as one of few alternate characters. Personally, I dig the current "a". You were right about the "c", I've fixed it.

Tomi, those S-es are difficult. I'm a beginner at vector drawing, you see (hadn't drawn a serious Bezier curve till october 2008), and I honestly can't see those bumps, but I've tried to make the curves as smooth as I can now. Is it better? I would be grateful if you could point out the faults, if they're still there.

New question mark. This is still unpolished, do you think this shape could work?

I think the bowl might be to big. Compared with “e”, the whitespace balance is very differently distributed. The joins—bowl to stem—are much thinner than those of, for example, “b”, especially the lower join. The horizontal counter in the bowl lacks a clear connection the the other letters.

I’m not quite sure what other kind of “a”-options I would prefer.

* horizontal OVAL counter

Your tweaks look good.

On the question mark, try making the top shape not come down as far, and enlarging the period.

What, no Koch "g"? :-)

The "r" and "?" have the same problem the "a" used to have.

Try giving the "S" a smaller head.

hhp

New "S", "r", "a" and "?", as per suggestions. I'm not leaving that "a" shape. No Koch "g", though. Now or ever. I'm not quite sure I understand your criticism of "r" and "?", Hrant. Too continental?

Good improvements.

The "r" was too mannered before; the new one
is better, but I might taper the join even less.

hhp

FWIW, I think I prefer the previous /S/, and that elephant-trunky question mark still doesn't do it for me. Did you try a horizontal shear to the main stroke at the bottom?
I think that /a/ looks great.

I agree about the "S". The new one creates holes in the text, too.

I've done a lot of work on spacing and diacritics, and needed to do something else this evening. So I started drawing fat glyphs, something I've never done before. This is a very quick draft of an extra bold or black weight for Telefon. Is this approach right? Or does it look like a parody of Benton's Eagle? How do I solve the "G"? Is the tittle way, way too big?

Hold it. That's no good. This is much better.

I like it!

I think the minuscule letters with round counters get too dark /b/d/g/o/p/q/. /O/ and /Q/ also might need bigger counters.
That /c/ is narrow but I'm not sure if/how to correct it.
Pretty nice job getting those vertically dense glyphs to work in such a heavy weight, /a/ and /s/ especially.
I think the tittles are fine.
/G/ is tough but you might be close already with what you have (I like it better than the Eagle solution, anyway).

Looks like I addressed your darkness concern while you were writing. I saw it just after uploading the first sample. I will give the upper case the same treatment.

Yes, that Eagle "G" is a lazy solution. Looks like I have to make "G" crossbarless, now I understand the reason for the Erbar "G".

Oh yummy! This is very nice work Sindre.
I'm just passing by and off to bed, but can't help noting a few spontaneous impressions:
- Agree that curvy caps need more white.
- Tail on bold "Q" seems shy. I'd at least make it longer.
- Not sure about the terminals/counters on the bold "s", but I don't have an alternate idea either (helpful eh!).
- I *love* the "f"!

BTW, Eagle's "G" has gotten protests from all the clients I proposed the font to. It's too much like a "C". Your form seems a much better solution, although it seems a bit imbalanced to my eye (but maybe it's mostly the weight right now).

I will post a new uppercase tomorrow, as it is indeed well past bedtime.

I was very uncertain about this, I've never drawn such weighty glyphs (not entirely true, I drew a rudimentary bold for the other sans I'm working on, but that's a grotesque, which is much easier), and it's been a steep (and darn fast) learning curve. Encouraging words means a lot. Thanks a lot, Craig and Nina.

Yes, that "s" is a bit awkward, it has to carry a lot of weight, and I found that the 45 degrees cut of the medium weight was impossible. So I made it 22.5 (echoed in the unpopular slanted "t" top. Perhaps I should try 30 degrees.

Unpopular really? Dunno, I think the "t" is quite nice.

So do I. But someone said it reminded him of Arial's "t". While the inspiration for that glyph is of course Oslo's old street signs.

I have some sweet pictures lying around of those signs. There are more funky stuff going on than one might think, at least outside the city centre.

I would love to see those!

Oh, this project is really, really nice. I love it.

Thank you, Daniele.

Here's a black "G" with crossbar. Can this possibly work?

I just saw your Grotesque on flickr, by the way. It's great! Have you posted it for critique here on Typophile?

Edit: I just discovered you did so a few minutes ago. I'll have a good look at it.

That /G/ is great!

Thanks, Craig. I thought it was perhaps a little uneven, so I changed it a bit. I've also adjusted the horizontal placements of these glyphs.

Great stuff.

Always liked this logo, the letter combination above reminded me. The weight is great.

That's a good observation, Andrew. My father was an avid amateur photographer when I was a child, that logo may have been a subconscious inspiration.

Black almost done now, I'll post a new pdf in a day or two. But I need some help on the numerals. Here's a first draft (upper case). Nos. "4" and "5" are very difficult to get right, and I'm quite unsure about the rest of them too. Any help greatly appreciated.

The curle terminal on five doesn’t really fit all that well. Four need some more weight on the diagonal. I would also move the crossbar up. You’ll have to watch the notan, though. Perhaps you should consider a different kind of four? I really like seven!

4- Maintaining that triagularity at that weight is quite the challenge!
Not that it would work for Telefon (which is made up of strokes rather than shapes), but take a look at what Mark S. did with the heavy weights of Mostra: he moved the counter down and over, heedless of the alignment with the rest:

Frode, you're right. Black, pointed "4" and "5" in this style can't be done. Jakob Erbar couldn't do it. The guy who designed the heaviest Futura weights (can't remember his name, and too tired to look it up) couldn't do it. But I want to challenge the impossible.

That's great advice, Craig! Thanks a lot. I've already done some (failed) experiments in that direction, and will continue to do so. Tomorrow.

Is this on the brink of actually working?

How funny, I also made the Ilford connection!
These latest numerals look splendid. Something about the zero is especialy juicy. I love the pointy junctions on 7 and 4, and though the counter of the 4 makes me wonder, I think it's a valid solution. I would like the diagonal to have more weight, but I also would like it to retain those points — if you moved the counter down slightly, could the arm have some weight taken off the top? You know, also I think the weight of the stem at the bottom could be reduced without drawing attention. Your 1 is delicious.

Thanks, Ben! I think the cold I'm suffering from (weird thing, the moment the temperature after a month rises from -20 to -5, everyone gets a cold) has zonked out the language centre of my brain, I had to read your suggestion several times to understand it. Well, here's a new "4".

...yes rereading that post it is confusing. Sorry I should read what I've written before posting ;)

How does the apex of A compare to the points on the new 4?

Looking great!

Yes, I think that works. What next? ;)

Thanks! The remaining important glyphs are section sign and eth. Not looking forward to drawing those guys.

Arr, yes, those two are evil at the best of times. I don't have a clue how you'd draw black geometric versions. Good luck.

I've attached a new pdf showing the present state of Telefon Black. (I'm having doubts about the name, by the way. What do you think?)

I've decided to finish all weights with a limited character set (237 glyphs), and add full support for Latin Extended A (and a selected few from Extended B), when everything is finished and working.

Any criticism as always very welcome!

Those caps are JUICY! A couple of quick observations:
Comma is a lot smaller than quotes, why?
£ looks light? It might not need to be the exact same weight as L, but it could be closer.
(I think I'm a bit obsessive about the £ sign however.)
Did I miss the section sign?
3 looks heavier on the bottom than on top.
Grave and acute look a bit too centred, I can't remember the recommended ratio of what goes where above the centre line but the small end should be nearer the centre.

All in all, this is looking terrific. Great work Sindre.

Could the cedilla be fattened?
Bendy's right about the accent placement.
@ looks cramped in its circle.
percent and perthousand look quite roomy compared to everything else.
I love the question and exclamation and quotation marks.
Yen's top bar runs into the Y's arms a bit too much - could you lower the bars a bit to let some space in there?
Dollar looks like it leans right a touch.
/X/ may be a bit dark.
/M/ looks a little wide but I'm not sure if that's solvable while preserving the structure. /W/ too?
Great /R/!
Weight on /3/'s bowl strokes isn't as even as it should be - looks like it gets cartoonishly fat at the southeast.

I agree with Ben that this is great work. And with his demand to see a section sign :-)

Thanks again, my good helpers!

I agree on all your suggestions, and have tried my best to follow them. Does this look better to you? I've fixed the per cent/thousand and the comma issue too, and I will look into the dollar problem later. Have to do some other work first. (I'm deeply envious of the people who actually make typefaces for a living.) I forgot about the section mark, and I see now that its curves are a bit wobbly. But do you think its basic shape and weight works?

That section looks like it descends too much to me (though I'm never sure about the proper vertical alignment of that glyph). I would squoosh it up so the center of it is closer to the vertical center of gravity of your figures. But again, I may be wrong.
I think the accents (acute and grave) still look way off. I would put the bottom of them very near the optical centerline of the letters.
I'm afraid /3/ still looks a bit fatassed to me. :-/
Did you or would you consider lowering your @ glyph so that the "a" falls centered in the baseline-to-x-height level?

I'd agree about the @. See this thread. Regarding diacritics, see this Typecon presentation by Adam Twardoch and Victor Gaultney.
Section looks like it's leaning left. I haven't yet come across any useful information about the design of this glyph, anyone else?
On £, I wonder if the crossbar should be lower than the centre, as featured in the E?

This is extremely yummy, and/but I agree on diacritic placement. And the cedilla seems strangely twisted – but maybe that's just me.

Here's some good input on diacritics from ILT:
http://ilovetypography.com/2009/01/24/on-diacritics/

Oh, I forgot to say, /J/ looks narrow and maybe mistakable for an /I/ now that it doesn't descend.

I've repositioned and fattened the diacritics, moved the "@", fixed the comma, altered the section sign, polished the pound sign, slimmed down "3"s arse, and tried a new cedilla approach. Cedillas and geometric sans-serifs aren't natural friends, apparently. Could this solution work?

... and reworked quotes and a more self-confident "J".

Looks good enough to eat! There's something amazing about this black weight in caps. I want it!
Looks like J overshoots a little too much?
I know what you mean about cedilla. It's taken quite some time even in a non-geometric sans. Your solution is clever.

I think the spot where the cedilla joins with the letter is too black. I'm not familiar enough with how they are supposed to look, but if the french think it's ok I would just put those joins on a diet.

I'm finding the Ø slash a little wierd -- it's hard to draw well. When two strokes intersects the thinner needs a slight offset. It looks like you have accounted for that, but it's still not quite right. Have you tried rotating the center part ever so slightly?

I've worked a lot on this since my last post, bold and black weights are now more or less finished, and I've worked my way through Latin Extended A for the regular and bold weights. I've done a lot of polishing on everything. I'll post a comprehensive pdf in a few days.

But now I need your help on this: I've done some experiments for a morbidly obese weight of Telefon. This has got be caps, numerals and punctuation only, I don't think lower case works at this blackness level. (They'll end up looking like Gill Sans Ultrabold.)

I'm not sure if this works at all. I've kept the basic structure of the glyphs, and some of them may not work.

Wow, looks great!
Biggest bother to my eyes: I don't like the squinting C counter. C and G both look a little cartoonish: is there any way to thicken the upright of G and thin the curve on the left half?
W looks a bit precariously balanced; I might try spreading out the lower vertices.
J could be a little wider maybe?
Nice job cramming that S in (though those counters have a touch of that squinting, too, maybe).
Is F's lower crossbar too thick?
Could/should the counter at the top of Y come down further?

Thanks! I agree 100 percent on all your remarks. I wish I knew how to solve that "C" and "G" ...
I'm unsure if the "E" and "F" are not too black, should I make the crossbars a little thinner?

I thought of that. With the counterspaces so thin, they may start to read as lines (a la Klimax) rather than countershapes: I do like how /H/ and /U/ don't reduce the counters to lines.
That said, there's not a lot of vertical room to work with in a "morbidly obese" /E/.
Maybe optimum size for the font is something you should think about as you make that decision.
It also occurs to me that if you thickened E's counters and they wound up more or less matching the letterspacing when followed by a straight (as in the EF of your sample), they actually might look more like lines rather than shapes.

Slightly wider slits in "E" and "F" (matching letterspacing), "F" crossbar thinner, desquinted "C", "G" and "S" (some additional curve-tweaking on the latter), wider "J", deeper "Y", adjusted "W" (I'd like to have identical angles for "A", "V" and "W", for kerning reasons, but that might not be possible for "W".)

This area is too tight I think:

Yeah, well done with that S! I agree with Craig about the G, and I'll be intrigued to see if there's another solution to the C. Next to D, the first C's counterspace looks very different.
I think F crossbar could even go a bit thinned.
Lower leg of K looks a bit tight. R is lovely though.
I wonder if the arms of T need to be heavier to compensate for the gaps underneath (I'm conjecturing that at extreme weights like this it can be more about minimising the white space consistently than having the black strokes all the same weight. At least it'd be interesting to work that way and see what happens.)
I think there may be some kind of optical illusion caused by the tail of the Q that makes its counter look too far left.
N may need more overshoot?

Tweaked "G", compromised apertures on "E" and "F".

Didn't see your post before I posted, Ben, but thanks for your feedback, invaluable as always. Bedtime now, but I'll continue working on this tomorrow evening and night.

Er ... I just had to work a little on the counters. I've tried equalising them as much as I can. Some tweaks on the "G" too.

Now it's bedtime.

Numerals. "C" and "G" are bugging me, I really don't know how to solve them. Suggestions are very welcome.

Sindre, that's a tough one! I think the counter of C needs to be somehow more central in the glyph, to make the weight more equal all around the curve. I had a quick try which might be a starting point:

4's horizontal lays too low, I think.
5 looks too skinny—could you make the bottom come around like /S/'s? 7 could stand to be a touch wider too.
If you could fatten 3's upper stroke that might be good. (Hey, deja vu! :-) )
The contrast in zero may be a bit much—did you try it with the counter squooshed in from the sides a little more?

I don't see a big problem with your /G/. The /C/ just looks too fat on the left. What happens if you just bring in that left extremum a bit?

Yes! Of course! I made that same diagnosis, but I just couldn't think of a way to solve it, I've been much too dogmatic about the proportions. Thank you very much for your elegant solution! If we ever meet, the beers are on me. I've felt several times while drawing this ultrablack weight that it is close to impossible to maintain the topology of the regular. The "G" is not doable, of that I'm sure.

Lots of cross-posting now, obviously. Thanks for your feedback on the numerals, Craig. I'll have to fix them tomorrow, it's getting late here. Sometimes I wish I was unemployed. Only 27 years till retirement. Sigh.

I'll get back to you on that G! ;)

I suspect 2 and 3 and 5 will need vertically cut terminals.

Lots of cross-posting now, obviously

Damn, for a second I thought I was getting the beers.

I'll bring you a cask of the very best Norwegian craft beer, should I ever set foot in Vinland, Craig.

Here's an idea. I followed the way you'd resolved a and g on the lowercase.

First off - this is really impressive! I love this typeface already.

For some ideas on the "æ-ae" solution you can (obviously) check Futura, but also PTL Superla. I think the latter alternative is the way to go, since it will preserve the geometric feel to it (even though Futura goes the other way).

I just noticed this thread so I have to get back to you with more input. The numbers are delicious, especially No5, and the letter "M" is stunning.

IMHO the morbidly obese weight is just.. morbid. Didn't like it at all. The typeface lost its qualities there.

Thank you, David. I've been having second and third thoughts about that overweight cut too, while I like some of the glyphs (BHMNRS and perhaps WZ), others are plain awful or cartoonish. Perhaps it's a good idea to finish the other three weights (after all, the ultra caps are still but an experiment), and then try a rethought fat face, perhaps less ultrablack, perhaps slightly condensed.

New pdf attached, showing regular, bold and black weights. I've covered Latin extended A, some extended B, and just a few glyphs from extended additional, most notably uppercase Eszett. I really hope those ten surviving speakers of Livonian appreciate my supporting their diacritical nightmare of a language! (Just kidding. Actually, I really dig all those moribund Uralic micro-languages.) I've also made old style figures.

Any criticism etc.

This is really terrific work.
Attractive letters and they fit together nicely (favorite combos include /ra/, /fi/, /tt/). That Arial-slant /t/ even slopes up nicely to an ensuing /h/! ;-) The letterspacing in the regular weight text sample looks tight to me.

I still think /J/ could be wider in all weights.

Looking at it in the text settings, I think the bowl of /a/ should be a hair smaller in the regular weight.

In the bold weight, the /Q/ looks heavy at the bottom - should you push that counter down the slightest bit?
Also in bold, I think the upright segment of /5/ could be heavier by a touch.

In the black weight, the diagonal of /7/ may taper too much - the cartoonish effect threatens to arise.

I like the idea of the narrow /z/, but I think it could gain a little in width more with every jump bolder.

The sterling doesn't do it for me. Did you or could you experiment with a bottom that turns acute at the left, like your /2/?

I buy the "stemless" cedilla solution in the black weight but maybe not in the bold and not at all in the regular.

(Note: the glyphs page for the black weight is mistakenly labeled "TELEFON BOLD.")

Again, great work. Get this on the market and hopefully soon you'll have funded your trip to America to bring me beer.

Thanks again for your time and thoughts, Craig. I was starting to feel a little insecure about this whole project, your criticism blew away those cloudy thoughts.

Yes, I've had doubts about the spacing. I guess I've landed on a spacing suitable for display work. But perhaps I should make it looser, so it can be set at ten or twelve points without the need for manual adjustment. But I wonder how much that will affect the kerning. I'll do some experiments. Is it only the regular that's too loose, do you think?

I'll more or less blindly follow your other suggestions, perhaps except for the cedilla thing. I think it works in all weights, but I might be blinded by my own idea. It would be great to have second on third opinions on this. (I kind of like my sterling too, but that glyph is rather alien to me, so I guess I'll follow your advice.)

America, here I come!

Is it only the regular that's too loose, do you think?
Yes, the smaller counters in the bolder weights make their spacing good to my eyes.

(I kind of like my sterling too, but that glyph is rather alien to me, so I guess I'll follow your advice.)
Well it's alien to me, too, so let's see what Ben "Mr. Pound" Mitchell has to say...

Ok well I had a sneaky look at this earlier and the £ didn't draw attention to itself, in fact everything looked unbelievably polished and beautiful. I really like this one.

Well I'm going to look through in super-picky mode so take my comments with even more salt than usual...

a is terrific! I love the egg shaped counter. As Craig said, perhaps it could be narrower but only a hair, it's great.

Tilde looks funny. I think it should be more monoline and more geometric somehow, like two semicircles with horizontal terminals??

aacute seems to need the acute moving left a bit, as the hood is already quite rightward.

aogonek: I think I'd slim the bottom spur slightly to compensate for the extra weight below the baseline.

ccedilla: I think the cedilla works fine, though could do with a final polish (the counter looks vaguely deformed)

eth looks a different size completely.

eogonek is beautiful.

I love f.

g may need a tiny bit shaving off the tail's terminal. It looks a bit getting fatter at the end.

ezh needs a polish on the lower curve. The rightmost nodes may need sliding down.

nacute needs the acute further to the right.

Why is there a smallcap R in the lowercase?

s is incredible. Good work.

scedilla may need cedilla further right.

w is awesome.

Wow, a wynn! Why not indeed.

yacute: move the acute right. And the opposite for ygrave.

Fractions: I think I'd add a hair more weight overall.

£: Now, here's the difficult one! I love the quirky toppling shape of this. I'd pull the straight section of the stem up a bit to make the left side of the hood more taut and geometrical. But actually what I'd like to see is a vertical terminal on the hood and a slab on the right end of the foot. And if you can make the hood's terminal hover over the slabbed foot then it would echo the G. I think a pointy 2-like £ would look out of place in this font.

Percent looks light.

@ might benefit from more space between the a and the ring.

Your punctuation rocks!!

TM: more weight?

Section is such a hard one. It looks wide maybe?

Uppercase:

Ccedilla: should the cedilla be a slight bit heavier than on the lc?

D: perhaps the bcps need pulling a few units right on the top and bottom of the bowl?

E with diacritics: the diacritics seem to be all slightly too far left.

Eogonek needs to have the ogonek flush with the right end of E's foot.

Ezh may be too narrow. I'm quite unfamiliar with it really though.

Q may need its right side lifting ever so slightly to even out the density above its tail.

What is that funny R thing?

Scedilla: see scedilla.

OE: I've never seen one like that, but I really like it. Is that ok?

I haven't looked in such depth through the bold and black. See what happens with the regular first!

Really liking this, there's something really 1930s about this style to me, but much sharper.

Kern hyphen with numerals:

Oh boy, I can only say thanks. Invaluable. I have to go to bed now, but I'm really looking forward to reworking my typeface according to your input tomorrow afternoon.

Yes, that small cap R may seem odd, but it's really a lower case Yr, used for scholarly transcription of Proto-Norse. (The upper case Yr is that weird R with the right part moved a storey down.) Yes, I know nobody will ever use it for this (nor for Livonian), but I want to be able to set "Ek HlewagastiR HoltijaR horna tawido" properly. I have a near-autistic fascination for archaic, classic and mediæval languages, you see.

I thought it must be something obscure. Is the lc intentionally larger than the other lc glyphs? Proto-Norse! I too love the branches of language families...I didn't know about the possibilities of extinct letters as well! Should you have yogh if you have wynn?

Well, take what I say with plenty of salt, as you know I am by no means an authority or anything!

Slowly working my way through your suggestions. I've made the currency symbols more equal. Here's the present state:

And here's your slabbed pound, Ben. I don't know if I prefer this shape, but you're the expert. What do you think?

In fact, the glyph you both saw as ezh was in fact meant as a yogh. But I find that the shape I've chosen is as good as deprecated, because of ... ambiguity. My books are old. Sigh. I guess I have to make new yoghs.

I had no intention of including ezh, as that is only used by the moribund Skolt Sami. (And transcription of some African languages, but I definitely won't support any of those.) But then again, now I'm just a few glyphs away from Skolt Sami. Here we go again ...

FWIW (maybe not much) here's a rough approximation of what I meant with the bottom of £

I feel that pound sign is a little out of character, as all sharp points elsewhere are the result of diagonal meeting stem or crossbar, Craig. It would be appropriate if I made a "curly" pound sign, like Futura's, but I'm keen to avoid that.

Fair enough.
That spacing is better. But that sample makes me think your /u/ may be too narrow, which I didn't catch before.
I also forgot to mention:

I've been suspecting that for a while too, but there's a lot of things to forget when you draw a typeface. Does this look good?

About the superiors: All hinting so far is auto-generated, I have to read up on hinting before I do anything. But perhaps their design is flawed too, I haven't paid much attention to those little guys. By the way, I've made slightly fatter fractions (and superiors):

Thanks for all help so far! I have to leave the house for several hours now. If I had to choose between a social life and type design ...

Yes, I think you've nailed it with that /u/ width now.

If I had to choose between a social life and type design ...

Typophile: social type design. ;-)

Yes! I choose Typophile! That's why I'm back much earlier than I expected. Been thinking about that troublesome tilde all the time. Contrast-free tildes are impossible!

Here's Calibri's—pretty monoline and work well I think.

Ah ... I made this in the meantime.

Is mine a hair too flat and wide?

Apropos the pound sign: My first draft had a pound like the one you suggested, Craig. Have a look at the picture on the first post.

Is that where I got the idea?! :-P

I think that tilde is close, though my eye sees it as thinnest in the middle which may exacerbate its squiggliness. Compare the way your ass-kicking /s/s thicken slightly along the spine.

?

FWIW I find tilde one of the most annoying shapes to draw. I think maybe you could take a fraction off the thickness at the ends leaving the centre as it is. (Or perhaps reducing the reflexivity of that central curve?)

I very much like your new £. I personally love the one with the slab, because the other looks a little too simple and naked against the more complex forms of the other currency signs...but of course it would occur with numerals which are very simple shapes. In terms of harmonising then, the slabless one proabably wins.

I think maybe you could take a fraction off the thickness at the ends leaving the centre as it is.

I agree - I'd just have the inside contour not come around quite so far - it looks like it's flaring out at the very ends.

Nice work! One small comment: while I was looking in telefon_080310.pdf, I noticed that in Telefon Black the right edge of the eth appears to be a bit lumpy. Most of your other curves are quite smooth.

Any update on this project?

i love this type of geometric san serif styles!
digging the scandinavian simplicity / geometric proportions
some even french i guess..

strong work!!

reminiscent of itc ronda (especially A!) and toronto subway (E) and so on
also loving the M! and the diagonal slashing on top of the t :]
S kinda like futura and some are like gill sans
but this is a strong unique work that has many facets! and i am digging it
ooh! and i also love the old type figures.. loving the overall movements rhythms

i love how closer to geometrical prime-shapes so things look edgier simple and straightforward
when i went to norway i liked the sign of the store norli :] and narvessen logos
have a nice day!

I came across this post while looking for Norweigan inspired fonts. I think Telefon is an excellent typeface. I haven't read all the comments. But I'd like to make clear my interest. I am in the next 2 weeks getting involved in a big book design project for a client based in Norway. I am bsed in London. I am looking for a Norweigan inspired modern typeface. Telefon looks on first impressions a typeface i'd like to use in the book as a principal headline style. Would you be interested in collaborating?
Shailesh

(I don't think Sindre is very frequently here at the moment, you might be better to message him offline.)

I can contact Sindre directly if you want.

That's a shame, his work is great.

Frode,
If you can contact Sindre for me that would be a great help. My address is shailesh.chavda@beetroot.co.uk
If anything comes out of this... will keep this post updated.

Hello again, typophiles. It's been a long time. Thanks to Frode for calling me back. Thanks to Andrew for encouragement. Shailesh, thank you very much for your interest in Telefon and for your very kind words. I am indeed interested in your proposal. My address is sindre.bremnes@gmail.com. I'm looking forward to learning more about your project.

It's a nice face, but it doesn't seem too different from Neutraface/Futura/Brandon Grotesque.

On the contrary! It differs quite a lot from these, which in turn differ quite a lot themselves.

Oh, it's much cooler than those :)

Can't wait to hear/see what this book turns out to be!

Thanks, guys. I hope you're right. (And while drawing, I never once thought I made a Futura copy. Indeed, all typefaces based on a stick and a ball will appear similar to the untrained eye.)

Glad to see you back Sindre! That serif face you previewed in the "cusped U" thread looks amazing. Will you be making a thread on it here?

Hello again, Craig. Yes, I think I will, if you think it's worthwile doing so. In fact, I've drawn a lot of stuff since I last posted on Tyhpophile, but I really don't want to outstay my welcome.

Sindre, I share Craig's anticipation to see more of your work — it's always been exciting and inspiring. I'd love to see you release something :)

Yes, what Bendy said! Good to see you round Sindre.

Thank you, Craig, Ben and Nina. It's really great seeing you all again! I've posted some stuff in the serif critique section now.

Is this font available for use? I love it!

Thank you very much, Sam. Yes, Telefon is available for licensing. Feel free to contact me at sindre.bremnes@gmail.com.

Hey, Telefon is becoming famous!
Very soon it will be released — along with several other typefaces you might know from the critique section of Typophile, and not only mine … stay tuned!

Go Sindre! :^)

Congrats!

hhp

So well deserved! Warm congratulations, Sindre. I can hardly wait to see this (and more) out.

Thank you so much, friends! This typeface wouldn't have this good at all weren't it for your invaluable help.

And finally, today Telefon is released on Monokrom Type Foundry, founded by Frode Bo Helland and myself.

Thank you so much for all your help and support!

https://monokrom.no/fonts/telefon
https://monokrom.no/

Congratulations!

By the way, I find your Satyr/Faunus font family ridiculously cool. I've been thinking of buying Cala or Quadraat as a letter-writing font, but I think yours might just have made the top of the list.

Thank you! Very kind and encouraging words. Satyr is released today too, as you might have found out.

Yes, Satyr rules the forest.

hhp

Looks like this old thing somehow nailed the Zeitgeist, very much without at all trying. Telefon is now number four on FontShop's Popular-list. It wouldn't have happened without /node/66441. Thank you again!

Wonderful!

hhp

@Sindre: It looks very solid, very well drawn, and historically aware, so although it is a pleasant surprise in some way it is no surprise to see it is gaining success. It shows you developed it with lots of love for the source material, which is good! :-)

Great news! Congrats Sindre – Telefon is a wonderful creation.