An experimental take on Laconica with Celtic knotwork. I'm not sure how to balance it better than this... any ideas? I'll do all the glyphs once I have a complete set of solutions for them.
This is a clone of LaconicaContinuing on the theme of overzealously antialiased pixel fonts, here's a 3x5 no-wasted-matrix design. The shading enabled me to make many glyphs which normally need to be truncated or compressed (MWaemswz@«©»®, etc). Looks best at 2x Pixel size!
This gives me an "old newspaper" feeling and seems like the kind of font that would be used for the text of such newspapers in old adventure games.
Unfortunately, I could not get the shading effect to work in any graphics software except by turning antialiasing on, and this ruins the look. So if you want to render text in this font, I recommend going to View -> User Input, typing your text here on this page, and then screen capturing it...
Original size: 15pt
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A font which has a spurless, sans-serif, pixelated polygonal look which is somewhat reminescent of fonts used in VHS technology.
A lot of applied science went into this design. It's designed to remain legible on all media in all use conditions, provided that one uses the original size or a multiple thereof. Numerous technologies and mediums were employed to realize this objective.
"Diaspora" was tested and refined for use with/on/against:
• CRT, LCD & e-Ink screens
• image formats & compressed imagery (GIF, JPG)
• printers (inkjet, bubble jet, laserjet, & thermal)
• analog video & multi-generational copies (VHS, Super 8)
• digital video (AVI, MP4, MPEG, WEBM, WMV)
• 3D and voxel models (Blender, MagicaVoxel, POV-Ray)
• dynamic scaling hardware (game consoles and capture devices)
• imagery plugins & filters, including image degraders
• image scaling/interpolation hardware & software
• image recognition hardware & software
These all have traits which degrade, distort, compress, glitch, or otherwise alter imagery in various ways. This design aims to minimize the loss of legibility from these effects and to attain the best scores possible in various forms of imagery analysis. So far, this has proved extremely useful, as it can remain fully legible even when extreme JPG or video compression are applied to it thousands of times.
A piece of software I helped write, called the Marinan Imagery Deconstruction AI System (MIDAS), is being used on captured images of this font. The end objective is to realize the design which has the best all-around Marinan Interpretability Value (MIV) for all the tested platforms - the design which is considered by MIDAS to be the most legible in the most media under the broadest range of use conditions and quality levels.
MIDAS uses a set of considerations made with both humans and computers in mind, so a high MIV does not necessarily equal a better font - it just means one that the system thinks is easier to visually interpret. Note the use of the phrase "visually interpret" as opposed to "read". MIDAS tries to determine how well people and computers can tell what shapes are, not how much enjoyment they'll get from reading or how much strain they might undergo while doing it.
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VERSION HISTORY:
1.0.0 - initial release.
1.0.1 - More Latin support added.
1.0.2 - First batch of tests run.
1.0.3 - gjy5&ßẞ were improved, some glyphs added.
1.0.4 - Second batch of tests run. Space width reduced.
1.0.5 - Experimentally converted to a rounded spurless design, then converted back to a plain spurless after testing. A few new ligatures were added.
1.0.6 - Cyrillic and Greek enter development. Many of these letters must be altered to be distinct from their Latin counterparts.
1.0.7 - Some spacing values changed to increase internal consistency. More difficult tests are being devised. However, since only I seem interested in this type of work, this project is going on hiatus for some time.
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See also: AMFA, a font built with similar considerations in mind
Experimental mosaic... or maybe a new mineral species?
This one started as a doodle. I began placing circles to see what kinds of complex shapes I could make, and this was the result.
It achieves a new visual effect at almost every size up to the original. Also try slowly moving the zoom slider for some interesting animations!
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This font is now nearly 1MB in size! I guess it has to do with the intrinsic complexity of circles.
Alternate take on Nirvanite, this time with bullseyes rather than solid circles as the large segments.
This one is a lot more organic than its predecessor, but also a lot more confusing. Looks like clusters of alien tadpole eggs to me!
This is a clone of NirvaniteA design that combines decolike asymmetry with a double line concept. It also incorporates some experimental methods to unify the wider glyphs (mw@#™, etc.) with the others, by allowing the middle sections of these letters to have both the single and double lines. This results in a look that is at times architectural and at other times almost like loopy cursive.
A font which uses some custom macaroni bricks. This one has the same kind of structural asymmetry as Phenomenologist. Angles and corners on the left are almost always sharper than those on the right, which gives glyphs a structural asymmetry as well as a sense of rightward momentum. This technique also imparts variation to some otherwise very similar letterforms (bdpq, mw, sz).
This is named for a species of android from Doctor Who.
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Other design decisions:
- Make the ascender height shorter than the uppercase
- Use squares for dots/diaresis and circles for punctuation, so that they are more quickly distinguished
- Allow the sharp curve and gentle curve to swap positions when it's beneficial to the glyph (BX8&)
- Incorporate angled lines into several glyphs so that none of the glyphs which have them seem out of place (SZsz012569*~$)
- Ignore the other design decisions for glyphs which need a standardized look due to their use in programming and other syntax-based forms of writing (most symbols & punctuation)
A quirky Pseudostencil design with a central horizontal slot going through it. The "slot" is 1 brick tall for lowercase and 2 for uppercase, and becomes a vertical slot for numerals and certain symbols.
This is named for the cowboy and lasagna emojis. These were repeatedly added to then removed from several popular chat clients and websites. Changing emoji standardization or government conspiracy? YOU DECIDE.
Experimental sliced sans serif. My goal here was to make a design which would result in an extremely compact and durable physical stencil. Almost all of the sharp points and acute angles are within the negative space, so it should be easy and very safe to make, handle and work with this stencil.
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Version History
1.3 - added More Latin and Google Fonts Basic bands.
1.2 - added uppercase, changed name to "Aegris Stencil".
1.1 - edited for more readability at small size. Glyphs with enclosed loops were altered so that the "movement" of the segments always runs clockwise.
1.0 - released.
Experimental brush/pen thing. Has a slightly spooky look. Because of their tapering curves, many glyphs can render with a "split" or "stencil" look about them. This is due to software-imposed limitations on vector rendering. Designs which share this property can be considered Pseudostencils.
This design is not informed or inspired by any existing typographical traditions. I set out to make the "claw" bricks (as I call them) into a font and this is the result.
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Iteration 4: Basic Latin kerning finished.
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DOODLE DOODLE DOODLE!
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Design Rules:
1. Letters with spurs will have the spur begin at the baseline. This provides the distinctive "high heeled" look.
2. Any letter whose traditional design has a straight vertical line on its left side will keep the line, no matter how the lines of the actual letter travel.
Iterated version of an unreleased design called "Midnight Oil". It's also slightly related to Dethzmezenger and Gehenna.
I went against a few of my own conventions for this one. The close spacing might look a bit strange at times, but it eliminates the need for kerning while also creating a unique look. The overlapping spurs make me think of thorny plants!
This is an original design, but it does make me think of Planescape: Torment when I look at it, thus the name!
I decided to make a design which incorporated the thinnest/lightest weight lines possible in FontStruct. This is the result; I'll add more if people like it.
These 1/32 lines cannot be accurately nudged, so a unique line has to be built for each vertical position where I want a line. These lines also cannot be centered on a place where two curves meet (such as the middle of B or R). This introduces some unintentional asymmetry to the design, but I like it, so I'll keep it.
There is also the problem that forming a diagonal line of the same line weight is nearly impossible. While angled 1/32 lines can be formed, their angles are all close to 0. No method exists for making a line which slants at 45 degrees while also being 1/32 weight. So, I had to make some thicker lines in certain areas. I don't think they detract from the design, but if you scrutinize this enough, you'll notice them.
Version 1.3: Added Polish.
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This font used to be a normal Decolike... until someone decided to chow down on it! They seemed to prefer the taste of spurs, as all of them have been bitten off, leaving only semicircular impressions.
"Nervousa" is an anagram for "Ravenous".
The Zephiest of designs - a gaggle of Roman columns with gongs stacked on them.
Version 1.5
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Experimental slab-serif. The added height from the serifs is quantized so that the serifs, rather than the normal lines, determine a glyph's geometry.
It reminds me of the Wild West and the old cartoon "The Jetsons" at the same time. It uses two kinds of serifs: normal slabs and "hangover" serifs. The hangovers are the ones that look like overhangs. Is there another name for them? I don't know.
This font is set to appear in several games at once! I'm not the developer of any of them! WOO
Despite what you may have heard, a "hoedown" is just a party.
An extension of ideas present in "Gehenna".
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Welcome to Tridisaster. It's ALL TRIANGLES, ALL THE TIME. Welcome to Triangle Channel.
Mathematical operators have a distinctive "open" look to help set them apart. There are few exceptions (like ^) because these symbols are used in many non-math contexts.
The only one I'm not sure about at this point is the comma, which works fine for my purposes, but probably makes this font a pain for anyone who tries to read/write at length with it. XD
All Basic Latin is kerned for both cases! Use a mixed case to create weird alien scaffolding! Inverted ",." can be found on "µ¶".
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A pixel font which combines four experimental techniques at once:
1. Structurally disconnecting the stems from the open parts of letters.
2. Allowing glyphs to extend beyond the reaches of width and starting position.
3. Designing glyphs specifically to connect and form new shapes, rather than simply allowing shapes to emerge from existing characteristics.
4. Designing glyphs so that the overall font is free of a need for kerning.
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Alternates are now on UPPER CASE. I'll continue to update this as I get more ideas!
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Original size: 6.75pt (use multiples of this value for pixel perfection)
A design that looks like a top-down view of ziggurats!
I composited the diacritics so they'd fit into place, but this means that most anything non-English needs to be pretty large to be unambiguously read...
A dashed line design made with the new half-arc bricks. The emphasized spurs/stems and off-kilter geometry give it a quirky, almost handwritten quality. Its striped appearance makes me think of candy as well as the Cheshire Cat, thus the name. :D
I doubt the upper case would look as cute as the lower. So I've cloned all LC to UC to make this easier to use...
Version 1.2
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A slightly futuristic and stencilesque design using halfwidth bricks.
The idea here was to make every glyph simple and minimal, not only in terms of overall geometry but individual line connections as well. Some glyphs are still more complex/less minimal than others, but I think it's a good amount of variety.
Version 1.1: Began changing the counter shapes of all glyphs in order to enhance the font's appearance.
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Experimental doodle. The idea here was to make letters, ascenders/descenders, and diacritics obey the same ratios. The result looks sci-fi and sporty at the same time... a bit strange, but also a bit useful!
Rather than serve an ornamental or decorative purpose, this one is made to be as clean as possible so that it works well for body text. It's highly legible at small size, so it could potentially even be a programmer's font!
"Goud" stands for "Garden of Unearthly Delights", the name of an album from the band Cathedral.
An ornate Goud with lots o' thorns! Now with MORE THORNS.
This is a clone of Goud