Developing my Typeface

Developing my Typeface 

During this session we were placed into groups and critically reviewed our edited typeface. Mine was Minion Pro. I found out a lot during this session. The main ones been how a serif with a shear is known as an italic and a sans serif with a shear an oblique. To class a font as an italic the shear can be angled to a max of 12degrees, more common shears are usually of 8 degrees though to remain legibility. 

To help create our plan for creating a consistent typeface it is a good idea to highlight some main constraints we will come across and have come across. The main ones I found for mine was that the extension within the serifs created an off balance structure within the letterform on the lighter weights. Shortening serifs will help this.

I had no lightweight letterform to work upon so this had to be created from a regular weight spliced in half and the light half multiplied and mirrored to create a lightweight version. 

The counter space was reduced when boldness was applied causing less legibility. 

We will need to create glyphs that work together in a family so an accurate construction needs to be created with good proportions and a consistent style throughout. My aim was to create contrast within 2 main elements within the anatomy of the typeface, this coming from sharp points within the extended serif points and soft roundness within the counters and joints of cross bars and stems. 

To begin with the experimenting with how far I can push my typeface I began to find out how bold my face could go without loosing legibility. As you can see the 3rd was the limit as the 2nd one began to lose structure and felt like it was been stretched out too much and the counter near on blacked out. The characteristics of minion pro have now changed completely due to the smooth curves with the stem joints that become more circular the bolder the face gets and the serifs become more square on the end points. 

To create a well developed typeface I will need to constantly modify the typeface, create obvious distinctions between italic, bold, regular and light weights, create a consistent typeface while maintaining professional skill and accuracy within typeface production. Constant evaluation and edits will create good modifications.

To establish weather the typeface will work the following changes will be made too; A B C X Y Z uppercase and lowercase.  

How bold can I go?

How light can it go?

How sheered can the italic be?

How will it be modified?

What am i going to modify within the anatomy?

This will be constantly blogged in its varying stages.