Balance – Fragments of Beauty

Is it symmetrical?

elementi — Thu, 23 Jan 2020 08:09:33 +0000

In the design of a typeface typically there are letters more interesting to do than others. The ones we use to determine a typeface’s style, look or feel and the ones which we might want to neglect for some time. Inevitably yet, sooner or later we have to spend some time drawing also the less interesting ones. And at this point someone may ask, as well: are they really so uninteresting? One of these candidates surely is the minor letter ‘o’. While creating a Sans Serif typeface we may be tempted to construct a circle. At least, even in the serif fonts where stroke widths swell in horizontal we hope that by drawing a quarter part and duplicating it four times we might get the job done. But human eye follow its own rules! Doing so the result is a letter seemingly out of balance, some kind of weird element among others. This depends in part on the direction of reading, as well as on other habits of watching in general.

What makes it so hard creating a well done ‘o’ is exactly that subtlety: making it seem symmetrical while taking care of these optical balance effects.

Even in typefaces which have a non inclined character, on the contrary to the antique Roman characters as Jenson and others, we might find that the inner circle, for example, needs to be inclined nonetheless a little bit. So that the eye while reading is not stopped in the flow of a line. In addition, the bottom curves of the apparently symmetrical ‘o’ behave differently to the upper ones. So, what makes it so hard creating a well done ‘o’ is exactly that subtlety: making it seem symmetrical while taking care of these optical balance effects. And let me assure you: it is a hard one! In part we are relieved of this task in the italic typefaces where by nature we have only a flipped vertical symmetry. And in general the eye is inclined to pardon small divergences more easily. In this typeface called Reflection Italic (later Urbino) I implemented more concise pen characteristics such as tiny edges on its outer curves. This not only helped to make it a more harmonious partner to its quite edgy Roman pendant but makes it more liberal in the choice of how to handle symmetries. In order to get inspired for what regards its reading flow I used Sandro Botticelli’s paintings for he is a true master of movement and lines’ dynamic. Read also [German and Italian language] Painting: Sandro Botticelli | Primavera (detail)

Working on Trussardi Small Caps

elementi — Sun, 23 Sep 2018 07:49:14 +0000

During my researches for a Trussardi brand lettering I developed a special Small Caps version of Reflection typefaces. Here is the metrics window and beautiful #Natalia as an inspiration fountain in the background. A particular task was to create a unique and special small cap ‘u’ which was hard to balance on the line without serifs. It introduces also a new intermediate stroke width between the thick stems’ weight and the ultra crossed hairlines. Which was necessary as, of course, without the serifs the ultra thin lines would not be able to create enough color on its right wing. Another subtle detail you may note here are the differently angled stroke ends which are slanted slightly towards the outside. It takes up a typical characteristic of Reflection as you may also observe in stroke ends of capital ‘T’ and other letters, as well. If you want to know more about my methods to develop small caps variants of typefaces read also [German language] Credits: Paolo Roversi | Photography

Interim Points

elementi — Sat, 14 Jan 2017 06:50:08 +0000

Here some intermediate results of my work on the Vision typeface numbers. Vision has aligned numbers which have wide and rounded bowls. Sometimes it’s hard to manage those forms especially when it comes to turning points or conjunctions of curves with (almost) straight line elements. During the work process I often come to add extra points that build mini intermediate curve sections. They can help when curve turning areas feel to be to abrupt or the complete change of curve tangents would damage the whole letter design harmony. Those tiny interim forms tend to vanish after a while or even sometimes are efficiently wiped out by the automatic optimization tools in font program leaving better results than before having them inserted. For myself I have special names for particular effects that quite often occur in design process such as shark nose which describes part of a bowl where the outer curve form seem to be to narrow so that it creates an unnatural rounding tip almost something like an “edge”. It can cost hours to better those zones without influencing on the entire letter’s curves’ balance.