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.
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.
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.
I finally made a folded-/ribbon-style design. This one contains a number of experimental techniques. Most notably, the swept parts of glyphs are allowed to extend beyond the letterwidths and sometimes even the baselines. This enhances the sense of movement, creates some interesting linkages, and reduces the need for kerning.
All of these shapes can be constructed with paper or ribbon, although lots of clever folding tricks, doubling, and pinning down/securing with glue would be required.
Alternate tilde on "±".
Version 1.3: Added Polish.
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Another asymmetrical sans-serif made for use in rulebooks for the Freeform Limitless Adventure Kit (FLAK) pen-and-paper game system. This one is classed as a hybrid and works well at all point sizes!
It began as a Constant Height design, but now I don't classify it as such since most of the letters with diacritics are taller than those without. A few letters (eszett, thorn, eta, etc.) are allowed to descend slightly, as well.
This font has also found some use on signage at a friend's bistro!
A variant of Clockwork Macguffin in which most curves are changed to 90° angles. Whereas with most fonts a change like this would result in a more authoritarian or "professional" look, this one became quirkier. I like it!
This is a clone of Clockwork MacguffinAnother of Dr. Zeph's* mad experiments! This is an Alien Latin Groovy Minimalist Thingamabob with numerous unique forms of dyslexia-inducing ambiguity. It reads surprisingly well at small size!
* = not a real doctor
A half-sized, filterless version of Comicool Unicase which also has square terminals.
This has lowercase, but is made for all-caps comic book style lettering, so consider the lowercase as something added for accessibility's sake...
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
Version 1.0
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A slightly quirky font made to be good for chat and marquee display. The global matrix is 8 pixels tall. This works well for IRC clients, MUD clients, and so on. Supports Dutch, English, and Greek!
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Original size: 6pt
A tall condensed pixel design with simplified geometry. It's the same kind of geometry I use for speedreading-optimized designs, but whereas those designs only have key elements altered for speedreading, this one alters every glyph.
This was made for a friend who does CNC engraving. His setup is so good, it can engrave pixel fonts - or predict the lines' geometry well enough to smooth out the pixel shapes into high-resolution ones. Now we want to see what this turns into!
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See also:Dynastium
Formerly known as "Specula".
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By request, a font with the two-toned look of a Pokéball. No filters! The Pokédollar sign can be found on "¢" and a Pokéball is on "•".
"Eviolite" is an item that powers up the defenses of Pokémon that are not fully evolved. Looks like a lavender-colored gem.
By request, a polygonal font with a slightly militaristic feeling.
The truncated polygonal perimeter of most glyphs is somewhat inspired by the lettering on World War I planes, tanks, and ships. These forms of lettering tended to have more square aspect ratios. I changed that to give this font more personality and to condense it so more text could fit on a line.
In terms of what modern military setting this might fit into, it looks very Air Force- or Navy-esque to my eye. Check out contemporary video games and recruitment materials relating to those two branches and you'll see what I mean.
An extension of ideas present in "Gehenna".
A semibold Gongclonker made to the same specs as the original - 5x5 with no wasted matrix.
This is a clone of GongclonkerTrying this style out. The name comes from a monster in the game NetHack.
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See also:Gridlarva
When life gives you halflemons, make Halfade!
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This is what I call a Plain Spurless design. There are no actual spurs, only right-angled corners to suggest spurs. All lowercase letters are like this except r, which is a Rounded Spurless because it needs to curve to avoid looking like Γ, and because it's only 2 bricks wide so there's no other place for it to curve.
I made this to have mostly right angles, to have a condensed look (see filrt), and to be good for speedreading. My own experiments in speedreading favored glyphs with simple curves which don't terminate in small arcs (see CGJSZfgjrsyz@()[]{}). There are exceptions (c2369?$) because these are more recognizeable when they have such arcs. Additionally, glyphs such as BPRXY have slightly rounded counters near the vertical center, which enhanced their readability without causing them to look out of place.
The remainder of design considerations were things which are fairly idiosyncratic and unlikely to be discovered by others. For instance, the descender of Q is 2 bricks, while lowercase letters' descenders are 3 bricks and symbols' descenders are 1 brick. This is the result of a technique that attempts to visually codify different cases & types of glyphs. The slightly different contours thus formed by each word on its underside seem to enhance both readability and aesthetics.
A seriously spurless sans-serif. It approaches minimalism, but doesn't quite get there. This gives it a look that lets it blend in with lots of things!
It reminds me of a font I saw years ago on some futuristic-looking tinned rations. I don't remember what the brand was, but I remember the label having a very rounded sans-serif font like this one.
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See also:2K4S
An experiment which attempts to harmonize soft curves and straight lines while eschewing angles. The result is this "inkflow" design. What is the opposite of an inktrap? I don't know, so I'm calling it inkflow.
This could also be viewed as a hybridization of neon-style lettering and normal sans serif... it is not quite made to be either one, but could act as a decent companion font to them. Most neon fonts need a larger size and are thus more suited to headers, while this design is well suited to body text.
This could also ALSO be considered a Hybrid because it works as both a pixel font and a high-res one.
A design with long ascenders and descenders, even on letters that don't normally have them. Good for "old book" text in video games.
This is used in ESOSVM for most text which occurs while the player is in the dimension "Ladede", thus the name. Ladede has a canon, cosmology, and eventing which are seeded by in-jokes relating to roguelike games, especially Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup. A font like this, in that context, is meant to be elegant but also mocking. This makes it seem subtly adversarial, as roguelike game elements are wont to do, and helps let the players know that they are in a bad, screwed-up place that they are unlikely to understand.
Asymmetrical alien techno stencil.
This uses some experimental techniques, of course, but I'm not sure how to concisely explain those. Let's just say that each type of line bend and line connection has a rule associated with it. These get naturally modified by the structural asymmetry the font has so that simple rules appear in many forms and variations.