I like the font.

I'll second that question.

reckon i been waitin' myself.

Anyone have a link to the critique of this? I don't see it in the san serif section.

thanks

Odd.... What happened to the font sample(s) and the critiques?

David

I'm intrigued...what does Pill Gothic look like?!!

Follow this link to get the skinny on Pill and other missing threads:

http://www.typophile.com/forums/messages/30/18545.html?1066163062

Randy

It seems like pill gothic has achieved martyr status. I'm affraid that the original won't live up to the hype. I'll see if I can dig up some old images.

Here is a pdf.

Amen, brother Joseph. Amen!

Christian, if you'd like to chat about distribution of Pill Gothic through Veer, please contact me. It's a killer face.

Another pdf. I added small caps and a ton of punctuation to the lineal skeleton. Some of the punctuation is kind of rough, and I haven't done any kerning. Next step will be polishing the italic, then adding weight.

I threw in some OpenType features (small caps and a couple of ligatures). It's not as tricky as I thought it would be. It really irks me that it only works in InDesign, and even their implementation is pretty weak.

I think the lc "k" is out of character.
Otherwise great stuff overall.

hhp

Christian, I am assuming that are you building this face using strokes to begin with, right? The only reason I mention this is because when I zoomed in on the PDF I noticed that there are a few end caps overlapping other curves, particularly in the section character.

By the way, did you get my email reply?

Grant

Yeah, it's still pretty rough. I've been going through and cleaning up all the bezier curves. Here is a pdf of a middle weight. The punctuation is still rough, but the characters are pretty clean at this point. I think the quotes are wrong, and the g isn't working as well in a body of text. I think I need to lighten it up and possibly give it some more space.

>Beating down your door...

As long as it doesn't seem like we're a bunch of stalkers.

Expanding on Joseph's comments, it the quirkiness in those few characters which really sets Pill Gothic apart from being just another DIN (JAD?) I especially like how you've modified the cross-stroke of the e in the ae ligature to slope into meeting the one from the a. Perhaps the standard e should use the same type of diagonal. Without going overboard, there may be a few other select characters that could also utilize that diagonal stroke - the tail of the y and the tail of the Q, for example.

I would agree the M would fit in a bit better dropped to the baseline, and in terms colour across the uppercase, I would consider narrowing the width of the U - it looks particularly out of place the all-caps heading for your regular weight PDF.

I really like how this family is progressing.

Joe, thanks for that comparison.
I don't know where all the DIN talk is coming from. Pill is further from it than many other designs.

hhp

I don't think you were insulting (and certainly not trying to be insulting), and I don't know about veins and arteries, but Pill seems quite distant from DIN to me.

hhp

Caps are usually more convergent - they have a much narrower expressive range than lc.

I think a good way to compare fonts is to look at the texture they make when setting a lot of text. In this regard AG/FG are far apart, as would be DIN/Pill.

hhp

Here is a pdf of nearly finalized spacing (the other
one was InDesign optical) without kerning. I also included
the bold (so far, it needs some tweeks--any suggestions
are appreciated) and the accented characters.

I also included some alternate characters. To Grant's
comments about the e, the original e had an angled
cross-bar, but I couldn't decide if I liked the horizontal
cross bar better. I have since reinstated the angled e.

As for the DIN stuff, if Pill is really a useful alternative,
I am flattered. They do have a similar feel, but Pill is
much 'trickier'. Whether that's a good thing or bad I
guess depends on how you use it. I would like to add
some more alternate characters to tone Pill down or
dress it up.

Spacing: I think it's slightly loose.

M: wider? Hey, the smallcaps one is different! And to me better.

e: I like the angled bar one.

g: I think the open one doesn't work as it stands, but an open bottom might be a great opportunity to try to make the angled join less steep, matching the "a"/"e". The different angle in the "g" has always been the biggest thing that has bugged me about Pill.

k: definitely the straight-legged one.

s: needs work.

y: the curved tail one.

Pound: beak out of character.

I'd put more staightness in the Pilcrow and Section.

Your accents seem out of character - more rigid please! Same with the Cedilla.

The "OE" is a "CE".

The Bold: I think it needs some modeling to avoid dark spots. But be very careful not to soften the character.

Almost there!

hhp

Tricks! More tricks! Just kidding. I don't like tricks for
tricks' sake. I didn't want a simple oblique, so I added
some curves to make it feel more italic, for lack of a
better word. Here [swf.7k] is what I had previously
done on the italics. The y needs some work, of course,
and some of the other forms will change, possibly with
some alternates.

That's nice! Some great glyphs there.

The only things:
- The "Q" is too tricky. :-)
- The "S"/"s" don't look happy - maybe soften their spines.
- I'm not sure about the descender of the "f" - in this face it seems contrived.
- You're gonna put dots on the "i" and "j", right? Maybe circular ones.

hhp

Pill is original without looking odd, which is an achievement, especially in a sans serif.

Somehow the original higher middle on the M looks more consistent with your face, but is a bit awkward in your original. Johnston Underground, which looks wider (as Hrant suggests) and ends further off the baseline, has a nice balance. http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/p22/underground/

On the S and s, Palatino's unusual S's (also in the italic) might give you ideas on how to keep your 'pill' arch at the top and bottom, and make the connecting stroke stronger.

Wow - there's still a lot of action in the development of Pill Gothic. Nice.

Great work, Christian! Since I wrote you early in the year, I am looking monthly, if there is something new about that font :-)

I hope, it will be finished soon. that would be the perfect type for all of my things.

I MUST have it! ;-)

Josch

Hi Christian.

Just noticed the lower case s.
The top curve is feeling a little pinched.
Try lowering the spine just a tad so it's
only a hair above optical center.

Cheers,
Randy

christian:

Im quite fond of this face. Please keep up the good work. I think you have found that many of us here appreciate this very much.

Would love to see it released, like Grant offered, maybe through veer?

Hildebrant.

Dylan want. Dylan want.

Please?

I have been tweeking on the spacing and have added some
kerning pairs. It is very close to being finished. Any
commentary on spacing would be appreciated. I have also
added some old style figures for text settings.

Spacing Test PDF spacing-test.pdf (30.6 k)

Christian,

Great work! Your font is beautiful and I will definitely be adding it to my collection when you are finished. Let us know when it goes live.

As far as spacing, the overall color seems very consistent. Although it is difficult to get a feel for the true spacing when the text is justified. I tripped over a few words in the second graph, but this could simply be because those lines were a little cramped.

I would love to see the old style numerals as the default. They really play nicely with the other characters.

Go Christian!!!!

Yeah, yeah. Here's the ragged text. : )

Spacing Test PDF No. 2 spacing_2.pdf (16.2 k)

Stephen, good call.

--

It's all "clicking" very nicely.
The overall spacing looks great, except:
1) Important: your blank space is too narrow.
2) The "r" is loose on the right.

The OS numerals bother me. At the very least I think they need to be bigger in the body, like the height of the smallcaps.

Some other stuff:
1) In both sets of numerals, the "2", "4" and "7" are dark.
2) Why is the eszet short?
3) Some of the diagonals are a bit dark. Like look at the "Z".
4) The bars of "f" and "t" need to be thicker.
5) I think the "S" needs a rigid spine.
6) Wassup with that megatrap in the Bold smallcap "A"?

Almost there!

hhp

Well, I don't know what's already been kerned in there, but you have to account for linguistics, like how often what ends up on the right side of the "r"; that determines your base spacing - and then comes kerning. Plus you have to decide how bad touching is - I think people who have kerning off don't mind touching that much. Also, in a sans face with such a strong-beaked "r" you're in a position of relying more on kerning to really make things click.

--

That "A" can be seen in the December 29 PDF, in the captions for the side stuff on page 1.

hhp

Yeah, the small-cap A was messed up. It has since been
fixed. Here is the same text set in bold.

Bold Spacing spacing_bold.pdf (14.5 k)

Here's a question. I have the font set up as a multiple
master, where the regular weight (as seen in the above
samples) is 400. The bold (as seen in the pdf in this post) is
1000. I plan on releasing a light (0), regular (400) and bold
(1000). I don't think that a meduim weight (650) would be
gratuitous. Would any other in-between weights be useful,
or would they just be more font list clutter? Opinions
please:

Four weights is much better than three, if they're paired right. James Montalbano once explained it (on Typophile) very sensically - assuming I remember it right: the Regular should be weighted for text, the Bold for emphasis in a body of Regular; the Light should be an alternate weight for text; and the Semi (or Demi) an emphasis weight for the Light. All this means that you don't want them spaced mathematically, but instead according to function.

Also, in practice the Semi can serve very well for text, except it doesn't have a "bold" (in a set of 4).

hhp

Overall very impressive.

I think the lower case s could still use some work; to me it is a little falling backwards to the left. The upper case S also does this, but only very very slightly. The lining 2 also I think does not work so well - something about the curve of the spine; the hanging 2 works.

Here are the four weights, along with the complete
character set.

Four Weights sample-4-weights.pdf (105.6 k)

Don't have access to a printer to give any real insight, but i did notice some path direction issues (overlaps) see the eth, yen, D-bar, not equal, and a couple other (in all weights). To that I only want to add: superior job on this font. Well done!

Randy

Christian: These weights look great. The only thing that stood out though was the numeral 4. It appears heavier than the other numbers on screen and on laser proofs. It is most noticeable with the fractions. I think because it's closed, it tends to appear heavier than the surrounding numerals.

Christian, sorry to pester, but could you show some samples with the four weights intermixed? Like a block of each with each of the other three used for emphasis.

And a question: what made you include the L-bar and l-bar? I've been getting mixed signals about whether to include them in my own "base" encoding or not.

Oh, and I think your curly braces need more oomph (a highly technical term difficult to explain*).

* Credit goes to David Berlow for that one.

hhp

Christian: I just emailed you an annotated version of the four weight sample PDF. Hoepfully everything makes sense in my comments.

I'm still chasing down all the gremlins hiding in the curves.
Who knew it would be such a pain in the neck? I'm getting
pretty close, though. Here is a sample with the weights
intermixed. For fun, I turned on the alternates in the Light/
Medium combination. Thanks for the comments.

Four Weights PDF testing_bold.pdf (42.5 k)

Both look solid to me.

hhp

Hinting needs some work, though. light/regular lc l, h, p, u have inconsistent rendering in that test, though in 4 weights sample they don't seem to. Did you lose your hints somewhere?

Christian, can you implement the Spanish characters?

Alavaro, si, he implementado todas las letras necesarias para espa

HI Christian,

Nicely done on the extra light. So tricky to balance the modulation!

Your obliques look pretty good to me. The following picture illustrates the major distortions that happen when mathematically skewing a font. All letters are thinned vertically as you mentioned (and fixed). The letters that get most distorted are the round ones. You may know all this, but I thought I'd post it anyways for typophile edification:



1. The verticals become more thin as noted above
2. The bottom right and upper left (if applicable) thin out
3. The upper right and bottom left (if applicable) thicken up
4. The upper right and bottom left contract (the curve gets tighter)
5. The bottom right and upper left expand (the curve opens up)

Also note generally that the distortion gets bigger and the glyph more narrow as the angle increases. In my (limited) experience the tricky and time consuming part is fixing 4 & 5 (usally 2 & 3 at the same time). I was given this tip by Ed Benguiat:
The obliqued curve should look pretty close to what it would be if you oblique it half as much. In other words, if you oblique it 20%, make the curves emulate the 10% version. I find pasting the 10% version into the mask layer a handy guide. You still have to fix the modulation problem, but it's a good start.

Cheers,
Randy

More about curve compensation on italics and obliques at Briem's website.

I think your obliques are fine, Christian.

Superior Eduardo.
Briem seems to slip my mind too often.
I forgot the rotation the additional degrees!

BTW I agree that pill obliques are working.

Randy

Obliques: I don't see much distortion, but I do think they need to stand apart a little more from the roman. Your angle is already steep, and you've already made it narrower, so I'd try making the obliques slightly lighter than their roman counterparts, and maybe change some forms too (like make the "a" and maybe the "g" mono, but don't make the "f" descending - too old-fashioned).

And a question:
Are fractions for old-style numerals supposed to be full-height, or really small?

hhp

Randy, your illustrations are legendary--always helpful. I had seen the explanations on Briem's website (one of the most helpful sites I've ever seen). For these obliques, I didn't do any curve correction; the angle seemed slight enought to not make a huge difference. The squarish forms of the letters help also. I did thicken the vertical strokes, however.

As for the fractions, I haven't done a different set for the OS numerals. Should there be a difference? I agree that the 4 1/2 combo looks a little odd.

It is now 6:01 a.m. and I have stayed up all night correcting the curves in my obliques.

Curves curves.pdf (70.8 k)

I'm sorry.

I should have added to the last post, your obliques have the special duck sauce now! (a compliment)
Well done.

And the number one way to tell you're addicted to type:
(Silently chanting to self: Go Christian, Go Christian, Go Christian. It's your birthday...)

Joe, enroll in a 12 step program immediately :-)
BTW, the number two way to tell you're addicted to type:
Describing oblique curves as *special duck sauce*

R

Here is a rough condensed version. I still need to clean up some weight issues (The N, for example), and a few unruly beziers (always the s). I have added some special duck sauce to the curves in the oblique, though. I haven't corrected the distorted weights on the diagonal stems, however (see the K). The bold is clunky as yet; I need to cut the connectors sharper.

I apologize for the large PDF. It's only one page, but, even subset, 10 ttfs can be heavy : /

Condensed pill-condensed.pdf (138.8 k)

Don't look at that last pdf. This one is much cleaner.

The letterspacing here is looking increasingly too tight with increase in weight. If you have a weight axis going with the stems just getting fatter equally in both [horizontal] directions, and no increase in character width, that explains it. I'm a big fan of uniwidth fonts, but beyond a certain weight the forms will start looking uncharacteristically too narrow (or too wide on the light end) when you try to maintain set-widths. (Was that too terse?)

hhp

The characters on the top are justified (in other words, it's not a uniwidth font). However, the spacing is slightly tighter (2-3%) for the bold.

A new 's' shape occurred to me today. I'm trying to decide if I should include it as an alternate, or make it the default. It is more extreme, so in some ways makes the font less versitile. On the other hand, it makes the font more interesting, and, I think, justifies the 'a' and the 'g'. Of course, the old S's would be included in the "Stylistic Alternates" OpenType feature. What do you all think? Does it make the font less useful; does it make it more interesting, or both?

New S New_S.pdf (43.3 k)

It's an odd balance to maintain - unique personality vs mainstream usability. Personally, I think the new S adds a bit too much unneeded quirkiness to the face. Maybe this is due in part to the fact I've just become used to the more traditional S in previous versions of the fonts. For some reason I don't find the existing 'a', 'e' and 'g' characters to be as radical a departure from the rest of the character set. I certainly wouldn't abandon the character, as it deserves to be an alternate.

I have to say I find the new S/s discordant. I wouldn't even be sure about including it as an alternate.

hhp

Ok Christian. It's been 23 months since you originally
posted this beauty. Is this getting close to release?

Finish this thing already before it gets so old it becomes
public domain! =)

Pill Gothic is coming together very well. I see it as a
nice alternative to DIN and a good pick if someone likes
Conduit but want's something gentler.

And Christian, the fact that you have Grant beating down
your door is a very good sign. They only sell good stuff.

Yeah, the caps are very DIN-flavored. Perhaps there are
some things you could do differently (drop the M to the
baseline for example).

I was originally drawn to that quirky k, a, and that g. The
top of the f and r seem to droop a bit. Perhaps they're too
long / exaggerated.

Whatever you do, Christian, don't finish this. Please, for the love of health and sanity! And whatever you do, don't add bolder and lighter weights. And esecially, don't fine tune the punctuation or fix the small caps.

;^)

Seriously. I'm not a Din fan, but I'd be tempted to find a reason to use this.

If you build it, they will come.

Pill Gothic caps versus (black)
Deutsch Industrie Norm caps (red)


I don't want to saddle this too heavily with the DIN
comparison, which is why I had to check it and post this
GIF. If this is like DIN, it's a healthy step removed from it,
and I still think the lower case is very fresh.

Pill Gothic lowercase versus (black)
Deutsch Industrie Norm lowercase (red)

Say, there's a "stuf" in there! Thanks, pals. Add an umlaut and you're there.

"Seriously. I'm not a Din fan, but I'd be tempted to find a reason to use this."

Hmm, yep, I said this. Pill Gothic has more uniqueness which will set it apart from Din. I certainly wasn't trying to insult the design with that comparison. I was, however, stating a fact that Pill Gothic will add new flavor to this genre of type. You can't deny that it is in the same vein. Can you? :^\

Ahem, I was the first to make a DIN reference, and I stand by it.

Well, there's no mistaking the overall impression of DIN,
especially apparent in the caps PDF Christian provided.
That's why I had to investigate further. But that said, there's
no reason anybody should be alarmed or put off by any
visual relation to it. It's like comparing Franklin Gothic to
Akzidenz Grotesk, both are similar from a distance, but
both work very differently when you start pushing them
around and working with them.

Whether or not a relation to DIN is a negative thing is a
matter of tastes. I happen to love DIN and I'll stand by that. =)

Tricky Feathers?? Hehe!

The angled 'e'. What if you split the difference?

The 'g'. I prefer the closed version. Can this at least be an alternate?

The bold 'M' -- seems a bit heavy at the middle convergence point. I think the bold '4' has a nice solution for this problem.

The '&", both weights -- That point needs to be exaggerated or done away with. What if you flattened it all the way up?

Love the subtlety in the 'fl' lig. nice!

The non-curvy 'y' should be an alternate. The curvy 'y' is much more interesting.

Will your italic be only an oblique, or will you do something more "tricky" like triplex?

OOOOooooh...

Christian, if you are going to be soft with the 'y',
why not be soft with other characters? And the
angled 'e' seems more appropriate here, so
maybe you stick with a straight 'e' for the
roman??

That cap 'W' is too wide.

Nice developments.

I agree with Hrant about the small cap M being better than
the cap M... now I feel sheepish for suggesting you drop it
to the baseline. Also, I agree with Hrant and Tiff about the
open g - I prefer the closed one.

I'm not sure about the cross bar of the e, but I could be
convinced. The italics are a very nice touch. Maybe an
oblique set is an alternate, if you want to get soft with
the italics? Just a thought.

Full justification isn't a great spacing test. Go ragged.

Thanks Hrant, but two disagreements:

- I don't see how the 'r' has too much right space. If it was
any tighter it would hit the 'f' in an 'rf' combo.

- The figures are just fine. Make a quarter-height or "hybrid"
if you want to, but these flow with mixed case well.

What Bold Smallcap 'A' are you looking at?

A bit of news: Pill Gothic is featured in the SOTA
publication, Interrobang 2 which should appear in
members' mailboxes very soon.

(Silently chanting to self: Go Christian, Go Christian, Go Christian. It's your birthday...)

I disagree with Grant. I think that 'S' will make Pill sell.

It doesn't have to change the way the font is marketed (as a full-
family text-capable sans), but with this 'S' it becomes more
original and will catch the eye of the all too common impulse buyer.

I also like how the straight stroke becomes less obvious and the
's' settles right in at text sizes.

I really like this font (too..) ...
somehow reminds me of the Font used in www.lancome.com...

does anybody know what Font has been used in Lancome website??

Vinod Jain