Custom Hand Lettering Critique Desired

November 17, 2016

Writing with fountain pens and learning calligraphy has spurred some additional creative outlets in me.

I've done a quick/not very thorough search to see if anyone has done something similar to what you see below. I'd guess that someone, somewhere has done something similar, I just have not seen it.

I know it would look better had I used a straight edge and if the triangles were all uniform. This is a first attempt exemplar, so I just hand drew it.

Looking for critiques, no opinion is too harsh or will be rejected. I'm just learning and doing this. If it is junk and I should keep my day job, so be it - let me know! lol

So -

1) What is your general overall opinion?

2) Any letter/number arms that could be improved or re-designed?

3) I'm struggling if I should keep this as a majiscule only or try and develop a miniscule to go along with it. Thoughts?

4) I'm considering trying to come up with a punctuation set, but not sure if the typography would necessarily need it.

Thank you to anyone in advance for participating in this thread.

November 17, 2016

A touch hard to read, but quite interesting. Keep going!

November 17, 2016

A touch hard to read, but quite interesting. Keep going!

Hard to read because it's too busy? Maybe fill in the triangles with some color?

November 17, 2016

It's hard to read because the triangle in each letter makes every form look similar. It's like the fencepost problem with really dense gothic script: everything looks the same, so you can't make out the letters and the words they form. I think as long as you only use this for headers the legibility won't be a problem, and if that's the only way it's used, then it won't matter that you have only uppercase or no punctuation. After all, why would you want to use this font for large blocks of text? If you're writing large blocks of text you want a transparent font that doesn't obscure the words, rather than one that calls attention to itself.

I like the minimalism. I don't think filling in the triangles with color is necessary, but it might add a cute touch.

One change I might make is with the V/W: Since the first stroke, which forms the right-hand leg of the triangle, goes straight down, then having a slanted final stroke makes the letter look as if it's leaning to the right, which clashes with the upright slant of the rest of the alphabet. For W at least, you could probably adjust the angle of the internal strokes so that the final stroke is also vertical (as you did with the M, only facing the other way). With the V, you might just have to deal with the slant. Or, alternatively, you could cheat just a smidge and add a bit of left-tilt to the triangle just for V, so it's symmetrical.

November 18, 2016

Is this something you've designed? I used to do similar stuff when I was in middle school and high school (although not based on triangles).

My recommendation, other than yeah, you probably need to be using a straight edge, is that you need lower case. That's probably part of the reason it's hard to read -- all uppercase letters is much harder to decipher than a mix of upper and lower case.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

November 18, 2016

Is this something you've designed? I used to do similar stuff when I was in middle school and high school (although not based on triangles).
My recommendation, other than yeah, you probably need to be using a straight edge, is that you need lower case. That's probably part of the reason it's hard to read -- all uppercase letters is much harder to decipher than a mix of upper and lower case.
Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

Yes, I am designing this. As mentioned above, I can see the benefit of a lowercase structure if this is going to be used as a script for a large block of text.

I'm going to take what you've all recommended here and make a second pass.