Study Task 2

Today I started work on my second typeface for study task 2. This time I chose to develop a script font, as I feel that this is arguably the most different from the Roman font. By choosing these too probably more difficult fonts first I hope that when it comes to developing a Block or Gothic font I will have learnt enough from experience to do a really good job. That is not to say that I'm not pleased with the result of the Roman font or don't anticipate being pleased with the Script font.

The main thing I've took from having already developed a typeface is that I shouldnt be so strict and numeric with my rules on how bold each letter should be (numerically at least), and that I should sketch out a set of 12 letters at each stage before judging what, if any, changes need to be made, because by doing it this way I'll see the bigger picture and hopefully avoid being counter-productive.

My starting point was Lucinda Calligraphy

I started with the light, I drew a fairly basic line showing the
basic shape of each letterform, apart from the upper case Y,
which I created myself to so it didn't have a descender. 

I then thought that the lines weren't dainty enough to use as
as script font, so I traced over them using a thinner pen, whilst
keeping roughly the same shape, I was happy at this point. 

My first stage for the bold was to thicken the a traced copy of the
thin font without making the letters to illegible. I think generally
I succeeded with the exception of the upper case Y, which is
somewhat unsurprising as I drew the initial letterform for that myself
with no consideration for how it would look in other font styles. 

I then had another go at the bold, this time focusing on making
the terminals constantly pointed rather than having large flat
sections, which struck be as not being particularly dainty, even
in comparison to a bold letterform. I also focused on the upper
case Y to make it more legible. I was pleased with this set. 

For the regular I traced the outline of the bold around the
outline of the thin to give me some sort of guide as to what
sort of shape and thickness the letters should be. This was
my first attempt. Unfortunately there were inconsistencies with
the thicknesses and the counters. 

Another thought I had about the previous stage was that the
letters were generally too thick. To get around all these problems
I traced the basic shape of each letter using the same pen I used
for the first stage of developing the thin font. I then doubled
the thickness of the lines in most sections of all the letters, only
thinning it down when I was approaching the terminals, as this
meant I could keep the pointed terminals consistent throughout
the typeface. The points are something I will work on further when
I digitize the typeface.