SPOOKY GHOST FONT. A work in progress. Getting the right spooky apparition look is pretty intensive, but I managed to finish the basic character set before Halloween. :D
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This started as a 5x5 design. After realizing S and Z would look far better if I made them 1 square taller, I converted the whole font to be roughly 5x6. At this low resolution, it's hard to get the degree of irregularity which I think makes these letters look ghostly... but, the idea is certainly present!
This design seems like it'd fit in with a lot of horror and science fiction stuff, too. Apart from the "smoky"/"ghostly" look, it has a "melted" one which suggests a hot place or maybe immersion in acid. It also looks a bit like slime, and finally at smaller sizes it has a glitch-esque appearance.
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.
Another 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 multi-outline design with intentional aliasing.
At the original size, it looks nicely textured. The illusions become more harsh as one zooms in.
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Original size: 12.75pt (use multiples of this size for pixel perfection)
An experimental design using 1/8 weight lines alongside 1/16 ones. The 1/8 lines are the smallest that can be accurately nudged. Centering them is still a problem at times, and I need a few impossible composites to perfect the glyphs ABEFHKQRXYijkx34789, but overall I'm quite fond of how this doodle turned out.
I think I could use some intensive compositing to get rid of the central dividing line in glyphs like A and H. I'll give it a try when I can.
A single line is bent on itself to trace letterforms in 5x5.
This is part of my "IVO" series (Inline Versus Outline) wherein inline and outline elements are split, merged, and altered to make them ambiguous and to allow new styles to emerge. They may look like maze fonts, but they have a different design methodology altogether.
Just doodling!
It breaks up clusters of words wherever punctuation appears. This might help with reading it out loud, by showing how long a sentence is at a glance and making it very obvious where to pause.
A chimera (fusion) which combines inline-versus-outline, maze, Gemscript, and other techniques to produce a timeless look.
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Original size: 6.75pt (use multiples of this value for pixel perfection)
Design Rules:
1. Square bricks only.
2. A 1px soft border of negative space must exist between lines whenever possible.
3. Glyphs must fill the 9x9 grid to the greatest extent possible given the rounded style.
4. The set of glyphs shall be a heterogeneous mix of symmetrical and asymmetrical forms.
5. Negative space will replace positive in any situation wherein the small grid size or the geometry of a letterform would be detrimental to the chosen style. This includes all situations where any shape lacks at least a soft 1px border of negative space around it.
See also: Terran Pixelcruiser
An experimental logotype and another attempt to create a distinctive design in 2x2. Some words look better than others... it's best for 1-2 word phrases rather than body text.
"B", "P", and "R" are compromise designs... no satisfactory way exists to create their curves while maintaining the optimal line width, so their counters were filled a bit to give them the same sense of solidity as the other letters.
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A "denghon" is a giant, many-limbed, extradimensional creature found throughout my games, especially ESOS.
(WIP)
An attempt at an angular, futuristic Fraktur design. It's also inspired by ancient Greek stonecarvings, or at least, the way such carvings are depicted in comics and cartoons. It has a lot of intentional asymmetry to make it look quirky and slightly comical. (I tried making everything symmetrical with composites, but it looked boring!)
I welcome any suggestions for this one. I've never tried to make a "normal" Fraktur, only avantgarde ones, so I'm not very knowledgeable about the style.
"Mythical Bursts" is an anagram of "Bismuth Crystal". The design is inspired by said crystals as well as Mayan/Aztec carvings (or at least, the comparatively simple forms they have in popular media) and sgraffito art in which a surface is scratched off to reveal a contrasting material underneath.
12SEP2018: I've edited every glyph in order to disconnect the letterforms from their enclosing shapes. This makes the font much more readable and consistent.
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Original size: 42pt (use multiples of this value for pixel perfection)
This started out as something diamondy and piratey, then turned a bit gothy before finally becoming a bit tridenty or perhaps even braziery. Ya feel me? I'm comin' atcha LIVE from this font description box.
This works best as a display font for short phrases. The name comes from the story by George G. Toudouze. If you went to public school in the USA, you've likely read the story.
An alternate take on Eyeball Kids which has more expressive eyes.
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Making this has given me an idea for an ASCII Roguelike tileset wherein lowercase letters represent juvenile creatures and uppercase letters represent adult ones.
This is a clone of Eyeball KidsHere we have a font made from hand-polished hipsterite rocks found only in the depths of the River Styx. These are the most expensive and most pretentious rocks you can find anywhere. This font is their punishment for existing.
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This is based on rounded rectangles, which have been the subject of a few conversations and in-jokes between friends. Because the rounded areas are rather small, this font needs to be a fairly large size to present the full effect.