STF_DER ZiiLTED

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by Sed4tives

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DER ZiiLTED - Neo-Grotesk italic hairline sans
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[ DESCRIPTION ]
The design is a simplistic slanted geometric hairline letterform with stylistic tapered spurs. Some extra glyph alternates were included to spice up this otherwise boring font, making it a little bit less boring.

The "DER ZIILTED" name was inspired by a poorly English speaking German person that is saying "The Tilted" in English but with a bad German emphasis on the phonetic sound of it hence 'der ziilted'
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[ INSIDE THIS FONT ]
■  Basic latin character set with only essential punctuation marks
■  Stylistic alternates
         • Double storey  lowercase 'a' & 'g'
         • Spurless lowercase forms (still in trial stage and likely will change)
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[ TECHNICAL ]
     ■  Metrics (in square grid units)
         • em-square:                 11 × 4.5
         • cap-height:                   8
         • x-height:                      6
         • ascent:                          2
         • descent:                        3
         • optical compensation:   ☒
         • stroke weight:               0.25

Nearly no kernig was done yet, but will be done at a later stage, since I'm 99.9% sure about having screwed up protocol for glyph 'side-bearings' in Italic fonts. (Still figuring out how exactly this should be handled properly, so stick with me on this matter..)
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[ PROCESS ]
Let's start with mentioning that only recently I was still tested 'Very Green' for Italic genetic material (found 0.01%).
I have very little experience doing Italic designs in general, having done only a hand full of trials, and completed only a couple. This is actually only the third 'true' Italic font that I have ever made with Fontstruct, and the second one (I think) that got published. Don't ask me why it took me about 5 years to finally do another, but, let me tell you this; Looking back at it after doing this font — "I now know why". This was tough to say the least.
I can imagine designing Italic fonts in general comes with it's own set of challenges of course. Doing this in Fontstruct only adds numerous challenges on top of that — "what else is new, right?!" Nothing that wasn't expected for the most part. But "holy frog on a leopard", what do I absolutely positively very much regret the choice to do so in such a small stroke weight. This stripped away every possible tollerance and free space for finetuning and making finalizing adjustments to minute little details required to perfecting everything (curvatures, transitions, slants and optical compensation).

I did the best I could to get visual aesthetics at least acceptable, and somewhat complete enough character set for basic latin text. There remain some small imperfections present for now that still need to get addressed.

For example I started experimenting with trying to achieve acceptable optical compensations such as overshoot. For now I only temporarily applied this to the experimental 'spurless' glyph alternate set for trial testing purpose, looking for acceptable results. And only once I found all the necessary solutions for each requisite glyph I transfer these adjustments one by one to the main character set. But all options remain open for the time being, it might so happen that in a later stage I decide not to implement them after all.

The 'spurless' glyph alternates will remain included to the project, but in what final form for now remains uncertain.

So from a typographer's point of view the font surely will look very basic and perhaps even simplistic. But looking at it from a Fontstructor's perspective, this was a lot more than just the average walk in the park for me.

But to be honest, I doubt I will do another Italic Fontstruction any time soon, haha

I hope you like it so far.

Cheers

9 Comments

Comment by Sed4tives 5th july 2022

Okay, some pretty major important changes were made since it was published yesterday.

First of all I have adjusted many of the characters to make everything look a lot more cohesive and unified throughout the full character set.

Eventually I got so satisfied with the more angular forms for glyphs such as: "KVvWwXxYyZz" that I have relocated them to the Basic-Latin set to be the default style for the font. Initially these were the experimental alternative forms and had numerous irregularities. Having all their glyph widths, sloped angles plus their respective stroke weights done right everything just fel in to place. In resonse to this, I have placed the more rounded forms back in the now available locations for their correlating glyph alernatives. I have done the same with the double and single storey lowercase variations, with the double-storey now being the font's default style.

The next thing in line to get processed is optical compensation on the vertical axis and see if I can come up with a solution for implementing this in a convincing fashion to all the required characters.

Comment by Sed4tives 6th july 2022
Comment by Sed4tives 12th october 2022

Damnz this design couldn't possibly get more challenging

― "Serious spinal rearranging brain-hernias"

Some of the difficulties presented by ZiiLTED's thin strokes and small grid dimension
had me thinking.

I've seen a decent number of Italic FontStructions roling down the sites blog feed over
the years. With the gross majority drawn on a fairly large grid and with weight going
from medium all the way up to bold weight. But sporadically more 'Light Weight' style
fonts slide along the reel, and if so, these FontStructions usually still occupy a fairly
big grid surface.

Generally speaking, the amount of flesh available in a stroke determins the level to
which adjustments could be made for achieving that 'Bézier'-like smooth rounds.
Taking this towards the oposite of the spectrum that means; the lighter/thinner a
stroke, the smaller available realestate to work in gets. And in return, the more
restricted grouping of brick-arrays and/-or individual positioning becomes.

As to what this means in terms of the FS-editor, I think that a stroke weight of
(1/8 th ≍ 0.125)
is sitting at the very limit of the FS-editor's capabilities in regard to achieving this
'Near-Bézier' effect for all required shapes and forms that make up for a
respectable typeface.

Rule of conduct here is,
That depending on its complexity at times this can demand some dazzling FS-skills
in order to properly use it to its full extend.

But putting all the information overloads aside and for example, let's say that;

"Small grid / Light weights"  refer to fonts that sit between:
(1-Em / 0.125-Stroke)  and  (12-Em / 0.375-Stroke)
(measures are in grid units)


Now my question remains;
― Are there any 'light weight' Italic FontStructions that exclusively occupy a small
grid and retain overall qualities of 'Near-Bézier'-smooth rounds!? (I think I haven't
seen any that I can remember of...)

Or have any of you fellow FontStructors ever embarged on doing this?

The only person that comes up for me is 'four' has multiple works that could
classify as such, but apart from him I don't think many other members have been
doing this a lot, am I right?


(BTW)

― ZiiLTED  ('not' comfortably')  sits at:
(11-Em / 0.125-Stroke)
― No filters used.

Comment by Sed4tives 12th october 2022
Comment by Sed4tives 12th october 2022
Comment by Sed4tives 12th october 2022

This is so stylish...and FontStruct accomplished. 

Comment by thalamic 16th october 2022

@thalamic: Sorry mate this comment slipped through bellow radar height I guess, but thanks for the kind words... I am very happy with how it turned out to be in the end :)

Comment by Sed4tives 29th october 2022

this font is so clean and well done we don't feel the grid under, bravo, love the design 

Comment by Michel Troy ~UrbanPixel~ (Upixel) 17th july 2023

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