bj,

This and the Motorpsychos are your best designs.
They have a consistency among the glyphs that
the others lack. I really dig the shadow look on
this, although I'd try it with a 3D block shadow
(no break on the edges) and see what you think.

While interesting, the thin lines on the 'O', 'Q',
and 'E' distract me. Maybe alternates? If you
haven't guessed, I'm in love with alternates.

Quirky display fonts are your thing, bj. Stick with
'em. Cool stuff.

Stephen

Stephen -- Text faces are very very difficult, as you probably know. Here is a good example of a poor text face (reznor). It's a train wreck, full of inconsistencies in style, weight, etc. I don't know how to do it! I've studied text faces but I haven't unlocked the 'secret' to actually doing one starting from scratch in Illustrator. I am already obsessed with type enough that i probably don't need to obsess over a text face for a year. But I love looking at them, especially the work of Storm.

thanks for the advice. I'll stick to display.

bj

reznor.swf reznor.swf (2 k)

I'm no expert in text faces (or even display faces...), but that "secret" might be that you have to tame your artistic inclinations to a huge extent, and worry much more about the "low-level" stuff, stuff that only other type designers can put their finger on (and not even most of them). Some people find that boring, but to me personally it's the other way around: Art is great on a wall, but with Craft you can make a meal.

If you show a font to a non-designer (which of course is the target audience) and he says "Wow, this is cool", or "Man, that 'e' is killer" then it's not working... The best possible reaction is: "Huh?"

hhp

-- That's the dichotomy and what separates 'fontlovers' from 'typophiles'. (i refer to the terms themselves, not the sites)

As a person becomes more of a typophile and learns about tradition and fundamentals, text faces become more accessible and appreciated. Your numerals, for example, to the 'fontlover' would be considered boring, but to a typophile, they become an exquisite collection of numbers that need precious minutes to be fully digested.

(Your numbers are indeed exquisite, I spent about five minutes looking at them, marveling @ how they were constructed. Not easy to do. Nice.)

I design T-shirts for a living so I dirty my hands on a daily basis with display faces, but I'm heading toward someday becoming a Level 10 Typophile, like you and Stephen. Someday.

As far as the best possible reaction: to have a fontlover say 'cool' AND to have a typophile say 'cool'

bj


ps: Was the Craft comment an unintenional pun? (Kraft for dinner)?

Glad you like my nums - thanks.

BTW, Stephen can speak for himself,
but as for me, I know I'm no Jedi.

And that "Craft" thing - usually when a metaphor
starts failing on me, I go for food (or cars)! :-)

hhp