Evaluating Existing Characters
Below you can see Madison opened up in Glyphs (the type design software used). The grey, filled in characters are those I intend on adding to create a much more rounded typeface.
Making Adaptations
I felt that the lowercase r was too wide, creating too much of a space below. For this reason I decreased the width, as well as slightly increase the serif, to compensate the space.
The lowercase v looked too heavy, so I stripped some width from one of the diagonals.
I looked at the lowercase e, and under different contexts the metrics seemed too wide.
I then exported the OTF file into InDesign, to look how it interacts within some text. As you can see from 'street's', the metrics were too wide.
Before:
After:
Increasing metrics on the lower case I:
Taking some weight off the upper case S:
As mentioned with my initial ideas, the numerals (especially the curved numerals) seemed too heavy. These were adjusted as seen below:
Before:
After:
I still think the numerals are too thick (and the metrics need adjusting), but I want to work on some new characters, and come back to the numerals at a later date.
Looking Into Existing Forward Slashes
Below you can see some quick research into forward slashes. I wanted to look at the angle, as well as where they sit on the line. It's clear that they reach from the baseline to the ascender height, which I then employed on my typeface.
My forward slash added. After looking at these characters, I think the overall metrics need to be made tighter, and some weight reduced from the lower case g.
Below I have looked into existing asterisks, and where they sit. The top of the asterisk is almost always at the ascender height.
My designed asterisk:
Inverted Exclamation Marks
Obviously with my question mark in place, the design of the inverted exclamation mark is simply a flipped version. However, I just wanted to double check the bottom of the mark rested on the descender line, as oppose to the baseline.
My inverted exclamation mark:
Hash Mark
Interestingly, I thought the hash mark would be at x-height, but it actually reaches the ascender height.
My hash mark:
These are used in mainland Europe as quotation marks, the example below being a single quotation. Just like the alternative version, there are both singles and doubles. The example below shows the guillemet reaching from baseline to x height.
My single guillemet - Although the example above is the same height as the x, I have chosen to reduce the size of mine, but maintaining the same horizontal width, with a entered character.
The punctuation characters are all finally finished! (Obviously there are ALWAYS changes to be made)
Reducing the weight of the pound sign character. This has been tough to work with, due to it's complex shape. Obviously I could change the loop, but I like the idea that it could be quite expressive.
Cent Mark
Below you can see a cent sign, next to a forward slash and an x. It's clear the slash is used, but instead of reaching ascender height, it hits the descender height. I
My cent symbol - I have decided to create a more vertical slash, which is seen in other examples. I find it to be less fussy, and works better vertically with my character, which is thicker and less contrasted in it's weight.
Existing Currency Mark
This doesn't seem to have it's own specific place - Apart from the centre of the symbol seems to match up with the x-height.
My currency symbol:
A Euro symbol is similar to a C, with two horizontal lines. It has also been reduced in width, roughly by 50%.
My Euro mark, which bares a large resemblance to an uppercase C:
Redoing Metrics
As previously mentioned, I wanted to redo the metrics, making them all overall slightly tighter. You can see this has been done below, with the previous metrics on the left. The test body copy on the right is much tighter, shown by the text appearing on a lower number of lines.
Adding Diacritics
It's relatively easy to create diacritics in glyphs. You first design the specific characters that the diacritics affect (Eg. a, A, e, E), and then the symbols separately (eg. acute, grave, etc.), and Glyphs arranges them together in the correct unicode character. However, Each character obviously will need tweaking.
As you can see, I used global guidelines to ensure that the diacritics were centred and at the right height.
Working the numerators and denominators:
The current set of mathematic marks:
Working with more diacritics - The S sharp is formed with the base of a lower case f:
Constructing a lowercase eth from a lowercase o:
The construction of the thorn; essentially the combination of an uppercase P & I:
Creating a double dagger:
I felt that my lowercase g was too heavy, so I completely redid the tail. The new option is on the right, which I feel has a much more equal weight, and overall looks better optically:
My current progress for the diacritics - you can see the characters that need doing have been highlighted in red.
Designing the H Bar was easy:
Designing the upper and lowercase N, a combination of the n and j:
Adding the slash to the lowercase l slash:
Adding the comma to the G comma accent:
