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Mithrandir is the Elvish name of Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings. It means Grey Pilgrim in Sindarin. Work in progress.
58 Comments
This is a project I started last year. A low-poly serif inspired by Vojtěch Preissig's beautiful typeface, Preissig Antiqua from the 1920s and similar contemporary works.
Very elegant type!
Pretty nice polygonal font. Hopefully the numerals arrive at some point in time.
This is how Mithrandir is written in Sindarin (handwritten in sample as it's not in Unicod as of writing this). Here is a (U)CSUR encoding: (This should be five grapheme clusters in an ideal environment)
"Unicod" should be "Unicode"
The angular nature of the font for the curved glyphs works quite nicely~
i agree with @BWM and @tortoiseshell
and with @typomanfoundry
Very nice, looks like carved in wood or stone 10/10.
It's been a while since I've seen someone try to work with the editor rather than against it. (Then again, I haven't been around much as of late, so I probably missed something!)
The "sculpted" look you get by leaving visible vertexes is quite appealing, and feels almost fluid—in a way I can't describe.
Great job; I can't wait to see how this will evolve.
Text sample before kerning.
I don't know how to put it, but I'm not entirely convinced by the letters with large curves here (C, D, G, O, c, e, p, q...). I can understand that this might be the defining characteristic of the font, but it just doesn't quite work for me. I tried a similar approach to this kind of font without curves in my fontstruct zerena, and I remember the effort it took to make the uppercase and lowercase letters uniform. So, I can only wish my dear Maestro @Frodo7 all the luck, joy, daring, and productive work in this charming endeavor.
Rules are made to be broken.
I tried this decagonal polygon, which smooths the curves a bit. I don't know if it will be of any use to you, Maestro.
(I didn't want to deal with FS comments today. We had parliamentary elections yesterday, and the ruling party has been defeated. The whole political system may change, for the better. I'm watching the international reactions and analyses on YouTube.)
Dear FS members, thank you very much for your kind comments and ratings. I appreciate both.
@Bryndan W. Meyerholt (BWM): I'm working on the numerals. First iterations will be ready by tomorrow. I know, the Tengwar script is not included in the official Unicode Standard. Does the ConScript Unicode Registry (CSUR) perform so poorly?
@Peter (Petruuccio): To me, these rough strokes look like linocut.
@Gr4ftY (groan): Your words resonate with my design intentions (if I understand you correctly). FontStruct was made for this sort of low-poly letterforms. Instead of chasing the perfect curves - a futile endeavour, in my opinion - let's embrace the faceted geometric shapes.
@elmoyenique: Thank you for your comments and helpful contributions. I always valued your opinion and considered it seriously. Type design is a subjective matter; we don't have to agree on everything. I quite like how the "curved" letters C, G, O, Q, c, e, o, etc., turned out. I asked ChatGPT for a short review of this new alphabet, uploaded a fairly large picture, and it gave me a detailed analysis with bullet points. The first thing it mentioned was the following: "the C, G, O, Q: beautifully constructed — convincing polygonal rounds". Does AI opinion matter? I believe it does. Do I always accept it? No. The funny thing about AI is that it's so human-like, it can make mistakes as we do.
Your font Zerena is a decent work. However, it is more orderly and symmetrical.
Nobody commented on the Preissig reference. Interesting.
@elmoyenique: My lowercase o is way bigger. Its design is airtight: one brick overshoots at the top and bottom, no wobbly bricks or misaligned corners. The axis (connecting the top and bottom peaks) is leaning forward slightly, whereas the thick vertical strokes are leaning back just as much. That gives the letter a dynamic, almost restless appearance. Your polygonal design is beautiful. It may be useful for smaller things, like the degree sign or the per cent sign. Incidentally, it is similar to Ortica Bold.
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What is wrong with you, people?
Given FontStruct's advanced features and the plethora of shared resources (custom bricks, circles, slopes, and tutorials), I wonder why we don't see more complex and sophisticated designs? There is a pointless race to build fonts with a record number of glyphs and repeating the same rudimentary designs again and again. (Respect to the few exceptions.) Why don't you take advantage of this free online font creator tool and build something useful? Why don't you evolve, learn new tricks, and develop new patterns? What is wrong with you, people?
@Frodo7 - Sadly, my friend, I've been wondering the same as of late...
1. An awful lot of cloning where there is either (a.) no change or (b.) only a couple of new glyphs added, which is hardly worth publishing and better kept for personal use;
2. Repeats of current 'fashionable' designs (looking at you, Justov/WeeGee);
3. Lots of simple pixel fonts with the focus on glyph-count quantity (in the thousands or tens-of-thousands) as opposed to quality;
4. "Wacky" banter in the comments sections, seldom dealing with fonts (unelss it's "Add these 17 obscure languages!") yet filling up the live feed; and
5. Finally, the FontStruct accounts and alternate accounts, and alternate-alternate accounts and the alt-alt-alt accounts... It's enough to make one's head spin.
It might just be the [younger] age of the current crop of recent FontStructors, who treat this more as a "hang-out" / social media website, as opposed to a site dedicated to expanding and experimenting with design ideas and making interesting fonts.
And there is nothing wrong with cloning, per se (as long as the original FontStructor permits), as you can learn much from the techniques and "tricks" of more experienced FontStructors. However, there has not been an evolution or seemingly even an interest in creating more daring designs as a result.
Most of the original old guard is gone or only makes sporadic appearances: will.i.ૐ (Will), Geneus1, Kix, AfroJet, Aprhoria, Sketchbook B, P2pnut, Intaglio, DJ Nippa, NAL, FontCollector, LexKominek, Aeolien, Thalamic/Minimum, Yautja, Beate and sadly too many more to list. It's understandable; life goes on and they, too, have moved on. Hopefully some of the newer members will take up their mantle to make fresh and exciting new fonts...
@Frodo7 - Don't mind me... I'm just an old man yelling at clouds. ;^)
@Goatmeal: Thank you for taking the time to share your views on this matter. Your observations are clear; all five points are valid. I miss the good old days of FontStruct, the vibrant creative atmosphere, and the community of amateur designers. Friendly, kind, respectful, honest people; always ready to help, happy to share, eager to learn, and full of fresh ideas. Almost all gone.
To the new generation of fontstructors. There is nothing wrong with being a newbie. Everybody started life as a single-cell organism (a zygote). If you don't know anything about type design, FontStruct is a good place to learn the basics. It's amazing how much one can pick up in a relatively short period of time by building letters brick by brick. And the whole process is so much fun and addictive!
Having joined this project later in the game, I can't really say anything about fontstruct's culture on a wide timescale. however, after coming back to it after my break, there was definitely a certain sense of stagnancy. Like @Goatmeal had said, nothing feels "new." (I must admit, I am guilty of this myself; I feel like sometimes I'm just "revising" my old fonts.) Any chatter in the live feed is in regard to meaningless or irrelevant topics—adding "noise" to the few sporadic discussions with to actual meaning. There's no real way to punish this, either; it's not in direct violation of the community guidelines, and it's not like many of the younger kids on this website care about or even read it. (I mean, i didn't, at first.) If only there was a way to clean up this mess—without censoring the live feed or removing the ability to freely comment.
However, it's little use lamenting without actually doing anything; I do have one suggestion—but it's something we'll need to bring our boss into.
It comes from a seemingly unrelated book.
Sample didn't work the first time; trying again.
Okay, my image of the book, Making Music–74 Creative Strategies for Electronic Music Producers by Dennis DeSantis, isn't sending, but I think I can describe it well enough through words. (It is a book, after all.)
This book is meant to be a guide/tool to get past problems in the creative workflow of music making, but I have found its solutions helpful in many creative areas, not just music.
One of the problems we mentioned is that there's nothing "new" being created anymore. The book has a similar issue that is brought up—but instead of a typeface, it is a song. The solution DeSantis proposes is simple:
Take all of the things you are "stuck" using, make a list, and don't do anything on that list.
Using the same instruments every time? Use something different.
using too many curves in your fonts? Make a typeface with only straight lines.
the examples could go on and on.
A very refined faceted typeface style. As a result you have created a beautiful font. I quite like the shapes of each glyph. They conform to your creative logic as well as the style of bold serif fonts.
While I think every glyph is visually appealing, you might consider revisiting the widths of some of letters. What I mean by that is if B is deemed to be the desired width then D seems a bit wider than the style demands. Or if D is the correct width then B could do with being a bit wider. Just my two cents.
All the angular letters seem quite perfect to me. I think the way you have modulated the stroke thicknesses in curved letters is brilliant. The way the angles change in the connecting strokes of the left and right stems of letters like r, n, p, etc. seems like a masterclass in typeface design.
When I squint my eyes and look at the screen, I'm impressed by the fact that with very few angles, you have managed to approximate the curves.
The basic Latin set is complete. The screenshot is to record the current state. I continue to refine the shapes and "curves".
Next phase: 1) punctuation marks, 2) special characters, and 3) extended Latin support. Finally, I'll do some basic kerning. It is always fun. : )
I redesigned the numerals. Please, tell me if the old versions were better.
I like the old 4 more, but for the others, the new ones are better (could have one form as an alt; the Private Use Area is a great place for that as it doesn't intefere with Unicode allocations)
I only noticed change o 3 of them 6 and 9 which I like better more open now, on 4 I cant decide, new one fits better the set, old I like better in general.
The new ones are better for me.
How do you see the tail of the Q being a little longer?
@Bryndan W. Meyerholt (BWM): Thank you. I'll probably keep both (number 4s), one for Alternate, as you said. I have another workshop file for discarded versions of other glyphs.
@Peter (Petruuccio): I changed the numbers 2 and 4-9, though minor changes are barely perceptible. Number 2: narrower; 5: slightly slanted vertical stroke; 7: slightly thinner vertical part; 8: trimmed excess on both sides while maintaining the overall appearance. Thank you for helping me.
@elmoyenique: I'm also happy with the new versions. Thank you.
My objective was to harmonise the numerals, make them look like a congruent set, and appear to be roughly the same size. It's funny, one couldn't guess the ranking by letter width. Number 1 (35 bricks); 2 and 5 (both 39); 7 (40); 3 (40.5); 0, 6, 9 (all 43); 8 (44); and 4 (45 bricks) wide. Yes, the zero is wider than number 3 or 7. It was shocking to realise that number 4 was the widest, after trimming it a couple of times.
Vertical dimensions vary less: number 1, 4, and 7 (58 bricks); 2 (59); 0, 3, 6, 8, and 9 (60); 5 (62 bricks) tall.
@elmoyenique: Very nice. It could be a Stylistic Alternate. Again, your version is similar to the Q of Ortica Bold. I studied a few similar low-poly fonts before embarking on this project. As a good designer, I borrowed ideas from them and added my own flavour to the melange. You can't find another Q like my version.
Did you notice that the capital O and Q are slightly slimmer now?
I'm considering a version with cupped serifs. It would give a bit of tension to the letters.
@four: Thank you for your comment. To be exact, the goal was not to approximate the curves, but to deconstruct them. As I mentioned in the very first comment, this work was inspired by Preissig Antiqua, named after its designer, Vojtěch Preissig. Preissig was a representative of (Czech) cubism, an avant-garde movement of the early 20th century that famously broke objects into geometric forms.
@minimum: Thank you for your kind words. You have mentioned two keywords: angular and faceted. I spotted a trend in type design which replaces perfect curves with crude polygonal contours. Is it a rebellious movement against perfection, or returning to the roots of woodcarving and linocut, all made by hand? Or is it a resurrection of cubism in typography? Who can tell? People see an inspirational sample and start making similar works without knowing its original background. It doesn't really matter as long as they create something fresh and beautiful.
I don't really deserve your praise. I didn't invent those angular shapes. I merely followed the trend. I studied those fonts carefully, adjusted my workflow with FontStruct, and built my first font of this kind.
Here is a list of polygonal/faceted type faces:
Acropolis
Berylium
Cedar
Chikki
Encumber
Enemy
Eskapade Fraktur
Fixtory
Flinto Cave
Framboisier
Hardware
Horse Pro
Keratin
Kitsch
Koper
Los Lana Niu
Megalith
Minotaur
Melon Ice
Metaphor
Novo Bila
Ortica
Preissig Antiqua
Pumpkin Haunt
Ruzena Antikva
Rezak
Sawabona
True Grit
Union Rodeo Slab
Why is it important? Because FontStruct is well-suited to this style. I encourage everyone to explore this avenue of font-making.
@Frodo7: I did realise that was not your intention, as I had looked into Preissig. It was interesting to discover that his 'straight lines' are actually subtle curves. I merely noticed how beautifully the weight is distributed in most of your glyphs. The squinting of the eyes is a trick in art-making that can be used to blur an image and helps to focus on things like tonal value.
@four: I use a blurred rendering of the character set to spot and optimize potential contrast related issues.
@Frodo7: I will reach out to you soon, your DM did not go unnoticed 😏
About your font,
There isn't much I can add that wasn't already said.
As usual it's a wonderful collection of glyphs, with a striking display of clever compromise in form to achieve this crude and renegade visual appearance that is both rough and elegant at the same time!
PS: I hope everyone here is doing well..
@Gr4ftY (groan): I'm sorry for my late reply. We have eventful days behind us. I've got the book you mentioned and have read it. Not all of it - because it gets very technical sometimes, and I skipped those parts that I hardly understand. Yet it has several good ideas applicable to creative works, including typeface design, as you mentioned.
At the moment, I don't suffer from a lack of new ideas. It's quite the opposite: I drafted more projects than I can finish in the next two years. However, there are periods when my brain goes numb - the doldrums - and I am unable to do any serious work. I believe some of DeSantis's strategies might help me out.
PS.: You may recommend that book to Sed4tives; he is an electronic music producer, a very talented one.
WOWOW! Love this, dreamed to make something like this... with cyrillic)
@Dmitriy Sychiov (Sychoff): Are you serious? I let you clone it if you want to make a Cyrillic set. I have no plan to build a Cyrillic version. Be my guest.
Some progress. Fufaika and Apple.
Very Nice. I like the б and л especially. In the meantime, I've built an alternative M which may suit the Cyrillic set better. It needs minor refinements only. The angles are: left and right columns - 1:10, midsection - 1:3, serif wedges - 3:4. Feel free to use it.
Cyrillic is ready! But I won't publish it until your font is open. I left the old м. I changed the e for Latin, but your version is better for Cyrillic. I also changed the kratki (above йЙ).
@Dmitriy Sychiov (Sychoff): Your Cyrillic is fabulous. Well done. You may change any letters as you wish. I will certainly keep polishing the Latin set and create the missing characters.
The capital Щ is missing its little tail (хвостик).
This is absolutely great! The 0 might however benefit from a "curve" similar to the 9.
@opipik: Thank you for your comment. This work is far from settled. I'll consider your suggestion for the zero.
Congrats on this new TP, Maestro!
@Rob Meek: Thank you very much for the special mention. Much appreciated.
@elmoyenique: Thank you for your kind words.
I nearly finished the special characters and punctuation. The text on this latest demo is after a first round of spacing and kerning. The next steps are diacritics and the extended Latin set. Easy peasy.
In the meantime, my font has got the troll vote. I couldn't care less. The sun is shining brightly, and I'm happy as ever. Fontstructing is always fun!
Congrats on the top pick! If there are plans to expand this into a multi-weight font family, this would be probably be the Bold style.
@Bryndan W. Meyerholt (BWM): Indeed, this font corresponds to Bold weight. I have no plans to build a Regular version. It would be extremely difficult to maintain the same letter forms.
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