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Experimenting with reverse glyph building (knockouts) to create a modular monoline font with more fluid, rounded shapes. A work in progress. I would appreciate any and all feedback, suggestions, etc.

Info:

Created on 23rd June 2009. Last edited on 29th June 2009.
License:

Creative Commons
Categories:
- Display
Sets:
- Inverted
Tag:
Fave Tags:
- -

20 Comments

Comment by afrojet 24th june 2009

It's brilliant how you create the proper geometric curve. And with that lowercase s, you definitively rest your case. Very well done.

Comment by thalamic 24th june 2009

I reduced the width to the lowercase 'f' to increase the flow and to make the letter spacing better out-of-the-fontstruct-box. Thinking I might do the same for the lowercase 't' and 'l'.

Comment by afrojet 24th june 2009

Reduced the width of: f, t, r, l, and 7.

Comment by afrojet 24th june 2009

Nicely done. There are more curve possibilities when drawing in negative space, especially in double scale. It's kind of like the difference between painting and etching or carving.

I have several 'knockout' fonstructions including one that is similar to Gaga, except the height my uppercase S is equal to the height of of your lowercase s. This forced a different methodology of dealing with the merging of the arm and leg joints as seen on your K, because it revealed a brick limitation. It is interesting how you used the limitation on the B, K, R, and k to create functional design elements. I'll have to post a sample to show you what I mean on mine. Great exploration here and in the stencil version.

Comment by geneus1 25th june 2009

This is awesome. Thalamic is right on about the s, it's beautiful.

The only ones that I'm unsure about are the B, K, R, and k. Something about the splits in the middle doesn't feel quite right.

And, I read the 8 as a 0 at first.

Comment by aphoria 25th june 2009

@geneus Gaga originally started out as one combined lowercase font, with the stencil (lowercase) version in the uppercase position and this "regular" version in the lowercase position. The font can get really interesting and fun when you begin to mix the two styles together (which was easier to do when it was one font). Eventually however, I decided that it would be worthwhile to give both versions an uppercase and that resulted in splitting the two apart.

This technique offers a lot of possibilities/variations. I'd love to see where it took you. Post some samples.

I really appreciate your critique @aphoria. I think the goal of The Gaga font series is to focus this technique towards building a true geometric monoline font with no compromises (or, should I say no contrast?). For good or ill, the B, K, & R are the by-product of that 'no compromise' position (and Fontstruct limitations) and yet, ultimately, my hope would be that it's that very limitation that injects some personality into this font.

Comment by afrojet 25th june 2009

In the sample below, it was in the creation of the B that the limitation of merging the middle joints was revealed . In order to work around it, I inserted slits for the B, K, R, and X. This made them stand out against the rest of the letters, so I just inserted the slits wherever appropriate on the remainder of glyphs, especially the M and W. Although a little unorthodox, your solutions are clean and consistent.

Comment by geneus1 25th june 2009

Wow. This is superb. Re B,K,R: it's interesting, isn't it, that the K is more successful than the other two. I guess because it's open-ended. I find it (what I'd call the compensatory influence of the eye) a source of neverending surprise.

Comment by intaglio 25th june 2009

@Geneus Very nice Gene. The slits add a dynamic element. I attempted using slits and they eventually evolved into the stencil version. And for awhile I had the same 'X' that you have in your sample.

I suppose what we would need to connect all these arms and legs would be the reverse of these bricks.

Comment by afrojet 25th june 2009

A few months I tried the reverse glyph building as you call it as well. At the time I thought it would be a great new achievement and I got a little disappointed when I didn't get the reactions I hoped for. I also had the idea of inverting the cutouts in illustrator to receive a regular letter. Well anyway a little later I could see the flaws that came with that technique. You're on a good way avoiding some of them. So it might be helpful if you take a look at my result, maybe that way you can avoid further flaws. You're also free to get inspirated if you like. ;)

Oh and here's the link:
http://fontstruct.com/fontstructions/show/pluto_1

and also a sample

Comment by David Neustadt (saberrider) 28th june 2009

Also I constructed my avatar they way you did the lower case s. It's propably the most "perfect" letter you can fontstruct this way.

Comment by David Neustadt (saberrider) 28th june 2009

hey Saber, thanks for the comment and pointing me towards pluto. I did a search when I was putting Gaga together to see if there were other examples of this technique on Fontstruct that I could study. Unfortunately, I didn't come across pluto. I was searching for 'reverse', 'negative' and 'knockout'. And I can see that none of those words are in your tags.

I'm liking your Illustrator idea. Once you've inverted the cuts in Illustrator you can then take the positive glyphs and copy them into FontLab. Here's a video tutorial for creating and importing illustrator glyphs into Fontlab.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOTLwmmrv8s

Maybe one day a future version of Fontstruct will make it possible to build a font in reverse, and then, with the click of a button, create a positive version.

Comment by afrojet 28th june 2009

Congratulations! FontStruct Staff have deemed your FontStruction worthy of special mention. “Gaga Regular” is now a Top Pick.

Comment by gferreira_admin 29th june 2009

@saberrider: Forgot about Pluto. I wondered if the S on your avatar was fontstructed.

@afrojet: Congrats on the great

Comment by geneus1 29th june 2009

Last comment was supposed to say great article with the link to http://fontfeed.com/archives/tag/focus-on-fontstructors/

Comment by geneus1 29th june 2009

Thanks @geneus. The interview was fun to do. I'm really looking forward to reading future interviews about my fellow Compatriots of the Brick. And that includes an interview with the diabolical one known to us as Geneus1 but known to his mother as Gene.

Love the brick idea. Do you think it would be possible to make elegant joins with those bricks using 2X2 filtering?

Comment by afrojet 29th june 2009

@afrojet: Re: Interview. That would be a sweetbelly freakdown.

Definitely those curves would be possible. Believe it or not, I already have several fonts sketched out using these non-existent bricks.

Comment by geneus1 2nd july 2009

Mr Meek must feel like a harassed mother gannet.

He who squawks loudest. Now about that mythical between angle brick....

Comment by intaglio 2nd july 2009

Not only do I love this fontstruction, but I also enjoy how it started such a nice discussion about bricks that I´m also dreaming they will come included in the future. Where do I sign the petition?

Comment by cayo 11th july 2009