Gimli Bevel Black

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Balanced Rating: 8.77
Average Rating: 9.10
Click for more information about this rating. 8.77 10 votes

by Frodo7

See also Gimli Inline by Frodo7, Gimli Bevel Color by Frodo7, Gimli Bevel White by Frodo7.

8 2910810

Dumpy beveled font with minimal design.
Info:

Created on 29th July 2014. Last edited on 17th June 2016.
License:

All Rights Reserved. No download available.
Categories:
- Sans Serif
Sets:
Tag:
- Beveled(18)

28 Comments

Comment by Frodo7 31st july 2014

This is a simple beveled font specially designed to make text look like stone or brick wall with thin gaps. It is based on the same theme as my previous work, Ecthelion, though the geometry have been greatly improved. At first, most letters were simply rectangular. That resulted in a text so monotonous, it was hardly legible. Later, I introduced oblique cuts at the corners of selected glyphs so as to give them more character, and at the same time, improve on legibility. The result with small triangular gaps here and there, is quite exciting, I hope.

Comment by Frodo7 31st july 2014

Another wonderful design ... looks so simple, yet is full of mastery.

Comment by p2pnut 1st august 2014

Impressive again! I could imagine word-sculptures based on this font. From the time it takes to load, I guess this was built on a large scale. Does that mean you are planning to make other versions?

Comment by four 2nd august 2014

@p2pnut and four: Thank you very much for you comments and generous ratings. I was hoping to get some more attention, for it was a great deal of work to build this font, and it could be quite useful for some applications.

Meanwhile, there was a computer glitch what resulted in all the composite bricks to disappear. It happened the second with Gimli Regular. After the first incident, I rebuilt the whole thing from scratch: it took several days. Now I'm waiting for Rob, and hopefully he will sort it out spending a lot less time.

Yes, it was built on a large scale to ensure that all gaps - horizontal, vertical as well as oblique - are the same width. Well, they are almost the same, and human eye can't tell the difference. Yes, I'm planning more versions with different shades of gray to make it look more 3D.

Comment by Frodo7 9th august 2014

I keep coming back to this one as it is so effective! The only character I have difficulty with imagining in 3D is Q and I wonder if a tail like $ would work better.

Comment by four 24th august 2014

HEY! Where's the TP?

Comment by Isaac González (1saac) 24th august 2014

@four: Yes, I agree. The Q was the only glyph I was not comfortable with. There is a new version, built in Adobe Illustrator. I hope you like it.

@1saac: This fontstruction is waiting for rescue. There was a computer glitch, and as a result all composite bricks were lost. If you zoom in a bit you can see for yourself: all diagonal gaps are wider, and jagged. I contacted Rob Meek and asked his help. If he can not restore the composite bricks, I have to rebuild the whole thing again, well, the third time.

Comment by Frodo7 26th august 2014

I have restored half of the character set. More to come.

Comment by Frodo7 6th september 2014

This looks rather 'medieval', specially the punctuation. Like stained glass windows or vaulted ceilings.

Comment by Aeolien 8th september 2014

Great effort of restoration here!. I remember the penultimate odd state of this charming font. Now it's living a second youth, I see. (BTW: do need you an extra hand for this work? I'm free.)

Comment by elmoyenique 8th september 2014

@Aeolien: Yes, it may have a medieval look, I haven't thought about that. Perhaps, it's more than just coincidence, because Gimli Regular derived from a previous work, Ecthelion , with an intended gothic feel.

@elmoyenique: I had some free time this weekend to rebuild this font. It's almost complete: currency symbols, asterisk, and some alternate characters to create. I made a new, smaller version of @, and changed the S. The new S has more white space around, and looks forward leaning: speedier.

Thank you for offering help. I have difficulty to design diacritical marks. The diaeresis/umlaut (for Ö,Ü) is easy. Any idea for Ò,Ó,Ñ,Â,Ã ? I'd like to support most European languages, Spanish included.

Comment by Frodo7 8th september 2014

Hope I can help you, compañero! Some good news are arriving just come from these kind of works! I come to work on it.

Comment by elmoyenique 8th september 2014

I came up with these two for È and É

Comment by Aeolien 9th september 2014

@Aeolien: Thank you for your kind suggestion. It looks a bit radical, but has some very useful hints. One: the accents are embedded in the letter - an idea I was not comfortable with until now. Second: the wedge shape pointing left or right.

Thank you.

Comment by Frodo7 9th september 2014

you're welcome :) I tried different arrangements for the `and ´, I had no satisfactory result for the ^. The easiest solution I found was placing the diacritics outside the rectangle of the glyph, but this might not suit the height you have chosen (which impressed me when I worked on extracting the wedge and arranging it...).
Trying to get the diacritics into the arrangement of black shapes proved difficult and only the 'wedge' worked well, sitting on the top horizontal; it makes sense when seen in smaller pixel size and I thought that it fits the look of the letters.
I tried making a rectangle with that same kind of look, to use as the ¨ umlaut, but had problems with the size. Other diacritics needed either a reduced size which I did not manage to create successfully, or they were partially breaching the rectangle.
I wish you good luck with finding the solution to this puzzling problem.

Comment by Aeolien 10th september 2014

@Aeolien: Thank you for your effort. There is no easy solution here. I think, I'll try downsizing the diacritical marks. Some times, having no new idea, I just leave the problem to rest for a while, and return to it later.

Comment by Frodo7 10th september 2014

This is a demo pic of the layered version. Each glyphs have been separated into four layers: top, bottom, left, right. The framework of thin lines have been added as fifth layer (identical to Gimli Bevel White).

Comment by Frodo7 5th october 2014

Very beautiful, I was hoping you would do something like this!

Comment by four 5th october 2014

The sample really shows off the excellence of this family. Beautiful work.

Comment by p2pnut 6th october 2014

@four and p2pnut: Thank you for your comments. I made the original picture 1000 pixels wide, and it looks a lot better than the small version. There are some small issues I have to address: some letters tend to shift a little, and I yet to learn the reason. It has to do with the metrics. To be useful and time saver for any typographic project, all five layers should align perfectly.

Comment by Frodo7 6th october 2014

Nice solutions for the diacritics! This is so decorative and some of the punctuation marks simply bowl me over.

Comment by Aeolien 16th june 2016

@Aeolien: Thank you for your comment. You have helped me a lot with brainstorming. As I said before, it helps some times to leave the problem to rest a while. I'm still not happy with some marks. I may change the acute and the grave.

Comment by Frodo7 17th june 2016

Comment by Aeolien 18th june 2016

The top horizontal of your 'C' looked like it could be useful to build a grave and acute accent...

Comment by Aeolien 18th june 2016

@Aeolien: That is a brilliant idea. So simple, so elegant. Thank you. I was thinking about something diagonal to include the circumflex and caron, too. Unfortunately, the fontstruction is already too big, and keep crashing the Flash plug-in, so I can't add any more glyphs to this version. I deleted all redundant glyphs already so as to keep it running. I'll do the diacritics in a separate file.