entry
Bold is not really regular

The goal

Admitting, that the former segunda regular font is actually a bold style, I decided to create my first font family.

Process & Learnings

While segunda should initially have been a base for a variable font (by just increasing and decreasing line width), learning more about type (by reading books and blogs), I realized that this was hardly practical. The outcome was more than ugly. Thinking about other options I decided to go into a didone style of typography.

The geometric style should be ideal. Verticals fat, horizontals thin, easy living. Boy was I wrong. What do you do with an A, a V, the M or all the special characters? This fontface took even more time to adjust and fiddle. Hints and kerning were off, letters didn't have the same weight. I had to add spurs and serifs because letters were indistinguishable or unreadable. In fact, i learnt a lot about didone fonts and why they have specific characteristics. The very big contrast between the different lines is not making a font designers live easier. I could probably change small characteristics on this font forever, adjust width, punches, serifs, line weight...

The result

Is it pretty? Maybe not on this screen. I'm pretty sure, that checking the fontface on a kindle is not best practice. The font looks still very technological and does not have the warmth of a didone font. It seems to work better in a low-contrast setting.

The following paragraph shows the outcome with some "cupcake ipsum" text:

The current state is not the final state

This is only a first draft - I have to update the width of the letters to account for different apperture, change and add ligatures - stay tuned for updates now and then.

Putting a rotary phone to good use

Strange things are happening