Just be careful about how you create the gaps, as it appears from this image that you're often making little dents in the sides of the stroke in front.

Yeah — I did some rough and quick cuts to to get an idea of how it would look applied to the whole illustration.

KeenanC,

beautiful work.

i prefer the cuts. where they are it creates more complexity and delights the eye. i won't comment on specific cuts. I will make a note that i like that you also have areas where you make just one cut, like the tail of the "R" so that you're only breaking the line on one side.

good luck with the final drive. And, i guess, Happy Holidays.

I think one adjustment that would quickly add a bit more finesse to the design would be to make upstrokes uniformly thin, and downstrokes thick. In the letter /e/ for example the stroke leading in would be thin up to the loop and come back down thick. Same for /s/; the spine is the downstroke. Make the spine thick and the stroke leading in thin. For /o/ the stroke on the right would be thin. Same for /v/. With /w/ you've got two downstrokes and two up. Down up down up.
It may be a bit much to master in the next 24 hours, but the reason why the shapes of some of the letters, particularly /a/ and /o/ appear to have kind of clumsy left-leaning strokes is because (1) the bezier anchors are poorly placed on the curve, and (2) their control points are overworking on one side of a given line segment, and underworking on the other. To correct this, place anchors at the extrema of the contour, and pull their control points out at right angles. Control points should distribute somewhat evenly the 'tension' applied to each side of a curve. You may need to insert some additional anchors, or pull a control point off to an angle other than a right angle while making adjustments, but most all what you're trying to do here is accomplishable using the method here prescribed. It is not all that intuitive of a process, and you may want to give up now, but this is how to fix the specific problem with your curves.

Thanks Dave! All this is really helpful! Trial and error has been a useful way to learn, but these little tricks will help me avoid a lot of trouble.

Awesome! I love it!
Great work!

Some feedback:
- The top of the /a/ bowl can be closer to the stem. So the counter centerline has more slope.
- The weight on the /N/ should be on the diagonal stem, not in the verticals ones.
- Not sure about the /e/ in "New".
- In York: the /Y/ can be wider, and the /o/ narrower.
- The ribbon effect can be a little distracting, use it sparingly.