LITERA FACILIOR GOTI ― A 'Blackletter' script style with a twist
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Also known as Gothic script, Gothic Minuscule, or Textura, was a script used throughout Western Europe from approx. the 12th untill the 17th century.
This FontStruction was aimed at mimicing the aesthetic approach of a ― ‘Textura’ variant of the Gothic Minuscule script style, more accuratly refered to as ‘Littera Textualis’. This style is most characterized by its strong sturdy letterforms, with distinguishing sharp, straight and angular features as oposed to the other variations in this catagory.
In terms of authenticity to the original predecessing formal script family, my ‘Litera Facilior Goti’ didn't took a whole lot of care for authenticity. The idea was to take a more independent and experimental approach to shaping the letters and forms, so it wasn't necessarily inspired by any specific typeface in particular, it rather recycles certain characteristics of a ‘Textualis Quadrata’, but beyond those aspects of general guidelines it evolved on its own.
Some of the areas where the design tends to really stray away from the tradition is for example the serifs:
It's often that I have some trouble with the weight ratio distribution of serifs and such elements in simplified modular based geometric Blackletter fonts. In many of such designs they tend to have been left pretty static and equal in thickness throughout the full character set. Which I think is often either having some letters look clumsy or even weird, and generally speaking also often making them appear too thick.
So this was one of the things I had to try and adress, I experimented a little with the style and forms of the serifs. Eventually this resulted in multiple deviations in variety to mix and create a more dynamic distribution. similar to what was done in less formal scripts. Over time they became ever further simplified, letterforms that involved less reorientation of the pen, in pursuit of styles that were quicker to write.
But taken as a whole typeface I find that it is having this certain ‘random-ish’ characteristic that is simply working for the better of these particular style fonts.
I'm still working on improving its overall rhymes and reasons to a certain point that is acceptable, balanced and with enough consistency. But up to this stage I personally think that the concept worked out quite successfully so far. And that even despite the fact that its stripped down of most ornamental decorative calligraphic extravaganza, it still managed to capture a convincing portion of that ‘Medieval ’ looks and personal flavour.
But I think that in the end this became a pretty neat looking font and it would classify somewhere between a hybrid mix of simplified Blacklettering and a drunken man's ‘Textualis’.
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Cheers!
This is a cloneBLAYDES - A modern geometric Blackletter style
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Playing around with some more experimental geometric forms for a Blackletter-ish font. It doesn't really involve or honors any actual calligraphic traditions. The font is actually just a simple geometric sans that was modified to sort of faking the looks and style of a Blackletter.
I tried replicating various elements that are traditionally seen in a Blackletter, such as: angular-styled segments such as strokes, transitions, tapered endings or serifs with a different approach. I used a set of circular shapes and variations to these in order to achieve a similar effect.
The end result sits somewhere between this obesed airport Grotesk, a contemporary Blackletter and the work of a bladesmith.
It has some very sharp and pointy tips, and for some reason this often very 'sword-like' forms.
BACK TO THE FRAKTUR - Modular geometric calligraphic blackletter
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Calligraphy inspired design, that even though it's name can be deceptive, suggesting one in thinking it is a Fraktur derivative. Which is actually quite not the case, and as far as being a calligraphic Blackletter inspired work, the similarities between the two stop.
This is a heavily simplified and geometric take on the calligraphic style, with much more modernized letterforms as well.
It remains a WIP, but I'd love to hear what u think so far.
Cheers
GOSPEL ANGLOS
A insular half-uncial or insular majuscule script style typeface project that is inspired by ancient celtic bookhand & manuscripts.
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The project is aiming at solidifying a number of different insular script styles. The main goal is to create a single typeface that includes about everything required to replicate the decorative writing style seen in ancient celtic manuscripts.(except for the ornamental decoratives)
The font, though essentially a bi-linear or majuscule insular half-incial script, in reality is a combination of different styles and complementary lettersets. Each carefully designed for specific purpose.
For example, it includes a more decorative Anglo-Saxon-script capital letter, perfect for headline text or book bindings. These actually include a small number of short ascending / descending letters, but it remains mainly a majuscule. Then there is a complete insular style lowercase set, but which resembles a more traditional style lowercase letterform. And instead of being proportional sized, these reflect the cap-height, remaining faithful to the bi-linear nature of the script.
Besides all that, there is a set of glyph-alternates for most of the Anglo-Saxon capitals, as well as numerous random stylistic glyph alternates scattered througout some other various unicode blocks. Providing more than enough options to make variations.
To top it all off, I started making a set of more decorative lombardic initial letters, perfect for decorating paragraphs.
(This remains a WIP for now, as I am still experimenting aound with different styles and bits to narrow down the right one that suits this total package)
I like how some of these characters turned out, but many are jiust ideas and not yet reached their definitive forms. But this set proved a lot more difficult than I had anticipated. So,
Any suggestions helping me to complete the full set are very much welcome..
The major recources and guidelines for the creation of this project mainly evolved around the two medieval celtic manuscripts:
"Book of kells" and "Liɴdisfarne Gospels"
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It has grown quite a bit already so far, but remains a WIP.
So beware of very little overall polishing or kerning.
The overall design has quite some rough character, even more so with the insular lowercase set, that obviously was not aimed at smooth edges. Actually the oposite, sort of trying to replicate that rough look seen with many scribes from that era.
But I would love to hear your opinions (or suggestions for that matter) on the work so far. I can really use a little refreshing vibes for this at this point.
;)
Cheers.
A medieval pixel font created for use in the graphic adventure game "Quest For Infamy" by Infamous Quests, (C) 2012-2014. Designed for fantasy / RPG-style video games. Uppercase letters inspired by: various German Blackletter, Old English, and Uncial typefaces; "Deutsch Gothic" by James Fordyce; "1454 Gutenberg Bibel" by John H. Schmidt; "Goudy Medieval" by Mentor Type; "Black Castle MF" by Rick W. Mueller; "Two For Juan" by Nick's Fonts; and Exidy's video arcade game "Venture" (1981). Numerals inspired by various Old English and Gothic typefaces.
For my weaving website I wanted a novel font. So here is FRIVOLITE, the shape is based on the beautifully shaped shuttle used for hand weaving. Indeed the O and 0 and @ show perfectly the shuttle shape. The other glyphs were made to fit (as far as reasonable) into this specific shape. I know that frivolité is knotting rather than weaving, but this shuttle shape can be found in weaving, too. An alternate N and Z is on 'extended Latin B'.