VOLLE BUISJES — Geometric sans-serif style
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[ INTRODUCTION ]
This font had derived and materialized from my previous FontStruction called Buisjes, and had innitially been planned to be made into this “solid”-style instance that would've then were to be combined and included to the original master font. That idea was later canceled when I decided not to make this part of the “Buisjes”-typeface.
I still went on completed it though, but I was now simply treating it as this unrelated new font instead.
The original “outlined”-variant still stood testimony in this second stage of development, as it served as the global basic backbone for this. But, since it now no longer was bound by accurate representation I could start utilize more dynamic sculpting techniques and make minute adjustments that incnclude some optical corrections, as well as implementing a slight more polished looking geometry.
[ TECHNICAL BACKGROUND ]
I took a clone from “Buisjes” and started modifing it into this new solid style. What I basically did was utilizing the “brick swap”-method in the FS-editor to replace every brick inside the font's “My Bricks”-palette. By doing so, essentially converting the font one-brick-at-a-time into this 1 : 1 conversion of its source without making any additional changes to the actual glyph-contours.
After a while due to some undesirable result that came from replacing the original bricks the design took a different turn when I started realizing that making an exact 1 : 1 conversion into this solid style wouldn't generate the most desirable looking font. This new solid version that was rendered from the “brick swap”-process seemed to have several optical complications, that when compared to the original outline version, had quite the different effect on its physical properties as well as the aesthetic quality of the letterforms, and had far less visual appeal. These newly presented optical misfortune also had a direct negative effect on the font's legibility. In oder to gain a better understanding as to why it took a toll on legibility some additional thing needs to be explained first, to make sense of it all later. This explains in short the visual effect of added contrast that comes from that “bi-linear”-characteristic nature of the outline version, which employs so much more emphasis to the font's overall geometric properties of various form, and therefor to the contour shape of a glyph. In return this has a direct impact on the overall effectiveness of these forms.
The reduction of this additional contrast within the font's “positive vs. negative”-whitespace balance for the solid version results in a letterform that has a rather weak representation of its several typographic components as well as for each of the individual letter-parts that form a whole, which also help to distinguish one letter from another. In simple words this means that a solid style lacks a lot of that emphasis that is present in the the original outline version, and makes for a far less pleasant and effective font.
Another issue I had with the 1 : 1 identical conversion was the unanticipated but pretty drastic deterioration of its initial “wow”-factor in the solid version that was generated. No longer beneficiary from additional added value that came with a more “decorative”-characteristic that is present within a outlined glyph contour. Also the “bi-linear”-nature of the outlined letters sort of gave the impression it was putting double the emphasis to the typographic parts and the geometric properties that make up each letterform. The rather squarish “box”-like characteristics of the lettering became much more evident in the solid glyph face. Shifting visual focus from the previously more ornate display attraction away towards this more “mechanical”-style that is this rather plain and somewhat shallow looking flat faced letter.
All of these were things that worked out just fine in the font's outlined version, but not so much in terms of a solid “filled”-like style.
Here are some of the things that cause trouble within an exact 1 : 1 conversion into solid bricks:
• Enclosed typographic elements render much thicker than what is considered “acceptable”
(requires optical correction)
• Diacritics render too thick and often too big
(requires a complete re-design)
• Radius of FontStruct's default solid circle arc connection brick is too small
‣ Making a solid font constructed from these to look compressed
‣ Arc intersection point not sitting deep enough
• Reduced emphasis in depth of geometric form
‣ Simple rather “feature-less” and “squarish”-looking geometry
(both requires numerous custom composite bricks in order to break-away from these constraints)
— The combination of the above in terms of the appropriate adjustments required to make optical corrections in order for it to have balanced proportions will have such significant impact to certain aspects of the physical presentation of the letterforms that they no longer share that seamless overlapping cohesion, and it couldn't really classify any longer as being this solid / filled style instance to the original master font.
That wasn't all (LOL) but yeah I'm done typing for now!
Hope you like it, more info follows..
Cheers
This is a clone of STF_BUISJESA mechanical, robotic serif font inspired by Kirby: Planet Robobot.
In celebration of Kirby's 25th anniversary! Happy birthday to our favorite pink marshmallow!
If used please let me know on twt/inst/dA/yt @Spiradoptera and credit me as Spiradoptera. Non-commercial. Do not alter. Ask before using for UT characters.