Below is an ISSUU document, showing with a final PDF of my boards for Madison:
Evaluation
Being the first brief of the year, it was crucial to set a
benchmark standard for the rest of my work in the final year. Having started
this brief over the summer in Slovenia, it was great to have a headstart, with
all the Latin characters completed in Semi-Bold.
Creating a full typeface that supports most European
languages is a huge amount of work, and so is creating a typeface. I found that
type design can become an obsession extremely easily. Each time a character is
added to the typeface, it was hugely rewarding. Even though adding the diacritic
accents to existing characters would not take too long, the process of adding
all of them took up a vast amount of time.
This project taught me that type design really does suit me,
and something to pursue more of this year, as I did not realise how obsessive I
would become over it, in a positive way.
Learning about common diacritic characters has taught me how
to create a fuller set of characters, and learning about rare glyphs such as
the “Interrobang” and “Asterism” has taught me to add something unique to my
typefaces.
Creating the specimen itself taught me ways in which a
typeface can be presented and sold on it’s aesthetic. The process of creating
the specimen was hugely rewarding, as I was essentially showing off the
letterforms that had taken me such a long time to create and tweak.
Although rewarding, it’s essential to put a cap on your time
when it comes to creating a typeface. It’s easy to become so absorbed in what
you’re doing, and very difficult to stop tweaking and trying to perfect it. I
feel that I could have been stricter on myself, as working so hard on one
project all the time eats into other work, and your overall health too!
