Birth of a Font

Re-creating letter forms;
When recreating the letter forms I used; block, gothic, script and roman fonts, made them all fit into a 10cm by 10cm box then cut them up so that I had all the different parts to make the letter such as the stems and bowls e.t.c. We were then told to make as many different variations of the letter aA bB as we could, therefore after experimenting with about 280 different variations I chose my favourite 10 letter forms in each a, A, b, and B.

Lower case a's;

 Top 10;

I chose these because I thought although some of them are a bit unconventional, they still look good, and I would be intrigued to see what the whole typeface would look like.

 Lower case b's;

Top 10;

With the b's I found that a lot of them were arranged using the same original letter form, just in slightly different ways, that's why they looked like they would work so well.

Upper case A's;

Top 10;

Although I had a lot to choose from for the A's, this is the one I found the hardest to narrow down, as I believe that the lower case examples are better, therefore I may not use any of these for my final 5.

Upper case B's; 

Top 10;

I also had a lot of B's to chose from, and considering for a lot of the I used different bowls for the top and bottom of the B, the ones I chose all look like they belong like that. Therefore I chose them as it will be a lot different to my others, and it still looks like it could be a functional typeface.

Experimenting on illustrator;
I first drew out each individual stem and bowl for all the letters I am using. I have stuck to my original fonts which were, Futura, Lucida Calligraphy Italic, Bookman Old Style, and Hobo Std. By illustrating this and doing it digitally I thought that it would be the easiest way of making producing many different examples and experiments with the letters, I thought it would also allow me to change the sizing of each letter to give them all a baseline, x-height and cap height, also to keep the lines clear and clean.

I reproduced my top 5 of each letter form, so that I could narrow it down further so I was working with less options, and less clutter on my clip board. After going through all of the different part of the letters and putting them together the recreate new letter I put them all on one clip board, chose my favourite, then started to develop my other letters so that they could resemble my original letter, so they would look like they fit together, look like and function like a typeface.

Developing first typeface, GOTHIPT;
When developing my typefaces I decided to adapt the letters and parts form the letters just slightly, this is so that the parts go together better and look more professional. Although I wont be changing the dimensions of each part of the letter a lot, as I want it to still look like it has been chopped off another letter, and show the key characteristics of the original font.

When looking at each letter, I played with what should go in front and what should go behind, as although it doesn't make that much difference, it just changes slightly, which could change the letterform completely.

After producing the abcABC, next I started to look at doing the 'x' which can be the same whether it was upper or lower case.

What works best when looking for what looks right when combining two different classes of type, for example in this its gothic and script, I just tried to test the different letterforms which could be made from all the gothic elements and all the script elements, to see which looks best, and suits the typeface best.

This is the 'x' that was chosen and to make it slightly different and put my own effect on the typeface I decided to add a serif to the 'x' as it looks better with the typeface.

I also added a serif to the 'C' aswell.

GOTHIPT is the name of this typeface, this is because it is combining a gothic typeface and a script typeface.

Second typeface, GOMAN;

When developing these letterforms I adapted them slightly so that they look more aesthetically pleasing, I also decided to add serifs to the gothic 'c' because I think that it makes the typeface look better and more like a typeface than just random letters.

This typeface is called GOMAN as it is a combination of a roman typeface and a gothic typeface. I think this typeface works really well together, if I were to develop a typeface I would develop this one.

Third typeface, BLOTHIC;

Slightly adapting this typeface by moving some of the anchor points will improve the appearance of this typeface, it will also be easier to make them all look like a set rather than just random letterforms.

This typeface is called BLOTHIC as it is a mix between a block typeface and a gothic typeface. I think it also resembles its name, as the block typeface, hobo, allows the type to have character.

Forth typeface, SPOCK;
I thought about combining two typefaces which have nothing in common, I wanted to look at how I can make something that shouldn't work well, into something that looks like a typeface.

Experimenting with different ways which the two typefaces can be put together allowed me to see which ones I could use to make this look like a set. I found that having a block stem throughout worked really well combined with the script.

This typeface is called SPOCK as it is combining a script typeface with a block typeface, which I thought wouldn't look right or work very well, but found that after I have made ABC,abc,XYZ,xyz that it does look like a working typeface.

Fifth typeface, SOTHMAN;
For my final typeface I decided to combine three different typefaces, this is so that I can see whether it could work, and whether it could look like a set rather than just random shapes stuck together.

As there were many elements to this typeface, there was a lot of experimenting with different letters and parts of the letters to see which worked best. When I found what worked best I tried to stick to that structure with the rest of the letters, this was so that I could keep it consistent.

This typeface was called SOTHMAN because it was a combination of a script typeface, a gothic typeface and a roman typface.

When experimenting with the letterforms I used illustrator, I will then hand render them, I did this becasue I find it easier to work in that way.

Final 5 typefaces

After I finished creating all of my typefaces, I found that I liked one of them a lot therefore decided to develop it further and create the whole alphabet. If I had more time I would explore the other typefaces to see if they would work for an entire alphabet too.

Final hand rendered typefaces;