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Advanced Typography: Task 3 Type Exploration & Application

 Edlin Raihana binti Mohamad Firdaus 0359096 Bachelor in Design Creative Media
GCD61004 Advanced Typography

INSTRUCTIONS

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   Submission: All exercises given are to be completed and documented (labelled, clean, clear & concise) in your E-Portfolio and hardcopy submissions respectively (print-outs if requested)

    Exercise: Create a font that is intended to solve a larger problem or meant to be part of a solution in the area of your interest be it graphic design, animation, new media or entertainment design or any other related area not necessarily reflecting your specialisation. End result: a complete generated font (.ttf) with applications.
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     ⇢ Proposal Planning

        I had a few ideas coming into this project with the thought of getting inspirations from gemstones and manuscripts. In the end goal I wanted the font to be used in a dark fantasy game setting (Lies of P, Bloodborne, Hollow Knight etc.), but it would still be versatile enough that it can be applied anywhere else.


        From those 2 proposals, I narrowed down to choose the manuscript type of font. I started researching on other fonts that included the type of aesthetic I wanted for my font. I landed on 2 fonts which are Jacquard 24 and Metamorphous.

fig 1.2 'Jacquard 24' font

fig 1.3 'Metamorphous' font

        With these 2 in hand I started deriving my letterings from of Jacquard 24's letters in Adobe Illustrator but it was way too blocky for what I had envisioned. Half way through digitizing however, I found an even more suitable font called Chomsky and instead referenced that for my font.
fig 1.4 'Chomsky' font
        I started of with 'O','H','D','N' and 'G' so that I could find the fundamentals and the ascent, descent height for my font.

fig 1.5 'OHDNG' lowercase + uppercase

        After being satisfied with the illustrations I made, I continued with the other letters of uppercase and lowercase.

fig 1.6 lowercase + uppercase

        This is when Mr Vinod, my lecturer, commented on how it looked wayyy too similar to my reference font. I had to scrap all off it and start from scratch. I did however kept a few aspects from this font that transitioned to my new font theme. The aspects that I decided to keep was:
  • the little star detailing found in the spaces of the letters
  • the tails of certain letters
        I started by emulating the chiselled tip found in most manuscripts by changing the line weight and the angle of the line by a whole lot. I also used Algerian as my reference font, rather than Jacquard 24, Metamorphous and Chomsky.

fig 1.7 Line settings

        Thinking of how to apply the star detail to the new letterings I started combining the star details with rectangles and lines that would act as a spine for the letters.

fig 1.8 Experimentation with the star details

        I then applied those spines to the letter I have and here we are. I also noticed that there were tails going upwards and downwards on some of the letters found in 'Algerian' so I applied the stars and tails there as well. I used the same tactics in making the the symbols and the numbers as well.

fig 1.9 Uppercase

fig 1.10 Symbols

fig 1.11 Numbers

        Since I was short on time, Mr Vinod had recommended me to do a unicase font to save some time to kern and to continue with the task at hand. I decided to name my font 'Starlington' and proceeded to separate the fonts into their own artboards and shipped it to Font forge for kerning.

     ⇢ Kerning (Font Forge)
fig 2.1 Font forge settings

        I had taken the measurements of the font (by creating boxes and getting the height from them) and keyed it into the settings. I then uploaded the .svg files into their respective boxes.

fig 2.2 Fontforge w/ letterings

        Everything was looking great so far. I then followed a tutorial video on how to kern and make your own font from font forge and found out about the lookups in the settings.

fig 2.3 Letters preview 'Starlington'

fig 2.4 Numbers preview 'Starlington'

fig 2.5 Symbols preview 'Starlington'

fig 2.6 Playtesting ' Starlington'

fig 2.7 Starlington in 'Starlington'

        I then started and spent several hours kerning each uppercase letter of Starlington. Truly the most tedious job ive done so far. For the kerning itself I decided to round everything off by 50s (-50, -100, -150 etc.) with a few exceptions because I wanted to keep consistency throughout the whole font.

fig 2.8 Kerning list

        It was all coming together when I remembered that both uppercase and lowercase needed to be kerned together. Although there were so many more letters, I went for a more different approach. Since there are only a few letters that have additional parts to them (tails, hands, roundness) I only kerned those letters ('r', 'o', 'u', 'w', 'v', 'y', 'c', 'a') as it was unnecessary to do the others. I also did  '4' since it consisted with the most curviest part out of all the numbers.

                                                        
fig 2.9 kerning of '4' of 'Starlington'

fig 2.10 Kerning list (updated)

        I then exported it into a .OTP file and started using the font for my application

fig 2.11 'Starlington' preview font download

     ⇢ Type Application (Planning)

        I replaced the fonts in Hollow Knight as best as I can by replacing the title that appears and when teleporting to a save point in an area. I also tried my hand on creating a promo poster for the game with 'Starlington'
fig 3.1 Hollow Knight Promo Poster

fig 3.2 'Greenpath' Area in Hollow Knight

        Other than the game application above, I also used the font by recreating Frederick Warne's An Observer's Book on Astronomy and designed a 52 playing card set. Im not kidding when I tell that this was really fun to create.

fig 3.3 Cover Page of Frederick Warne's An Observer's Book on Astronomy 

fig 3.4 Cover Page + Spine w/ Lettering of Frederick Warne's An Observer's Book on Astronomy 

fig 3.5 Cover Page of Frederick Warne's An Observer's Book on Astronomy w/ Vintage Overlay

fig 3.6 Clubs, Hearts, Spades & Diamond of 'Starlington' Card Set

fig 3.7 Card Sleeve of 'Starlington' Card Set

fig 3.8 Card Backing of 'Starlington' Card Set

fig 3.9 Examples of Card Fronts of 'Starlington' Card Set

            Between you and me, I did this on a whim and I'm just so glad that it looks great.

     ⇢ Type Application (Mock Ups)

fig 4.0 Type Application Mock Up (Playing Cards)

fig 4.1 Type Application Mock Up (Book Cover)
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    ⇢ Feedback (In order of from earliest to latest)
Sketching
  • Concerns with the detailing lines being too thin as a font
Digitizing
  • Less details
  • Too similar to the reference font
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     ⇢ Final Type Submission

            'Starlington' Download link:

fig 5.1 'Starlington'

     ⇢ Font Presentation

fig 5.2 Font Presentation #1

fig 5.3 Font Presentation #2

fig 5.3 Font Presentation #3

fig 5.4 Font Presentation #4

fig 5.5 Font Presentation #5

     ⇢ Application
fig 5.6 Hollow Knight Application #1

fig 5.7 Hollow Knight  Application #2

fig 5.8 Card Mock Up

fig 5.9 Book Cover Mock Up

     ⇢ Reflection

        Wow this task being hard was an understatement to say the least. I did have fun coming to the end though, maybe the real typography was the friends we made along the way. I learnt so many things from this task. New shortcuts, new know how's, new perspectives, new everything!

        This task really made me rethink life for a bit but I did realise that you really need to pace yourself and time manage your time like your life depends on it. This task also gave me the same feeling of finally killing a really hard boss after so many tries and the satisfaction...OH THE SATISFACTION IS TASTY.
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