Update

I found the other font that I’m making to be too… I don’t know. I just don’t like the feel, maybe because I think it is directionless. I tried making several others which looked okay in paper, but turned out to be horrible on the screen, mainly because of my pen tool (im)prowess. However, I managed to cook up something really nice.

I’ve always wanted a slightly bendy r, so when I tried putting it on screen, it looked good. The n followed. I fought my way into creating the a, and then the i and d followed. I tested it on FontLab Studio’s quick test, and it looked really horrible. It looked like a font for zoo games. Haha.

I reworked the glyphs and then followed up with b, starting from a mirrored d. Lowercase p and q followed, mostly from modified mirrors of b and d. I don’t know why, but o and l came in last. By then, I have formed a rather friendly feel to the font with the slightly-bended ascenders. So far, here is the result:

What the typeface looks so far.

I plan to modify b (and q) later. Spacing is obviously still off.

I only have a week or so before the semester starts, which means less development time. I wonder, when would I reach the joys of kerning? Haha.

After working my ass off for several hours, I managed to somewhat regulate the weights of the glyphs. I’ve added new glyphs as well, but still no lc s. I’m going to take a break first.

Untitled Sans 0.015

Untitled Sans PDF for version 0.015

I opened up a pen tool tutorial for Adobe Illustrator and fiddled around with it until I grasped the basics. So I opened up FontLab Studio and started making a sans. I made the lowercase r by modifying previous sketches of a serif face. Some modifications later, the lowercase n was born, and so was the lowercase h. The lowercase l and i followed suit, and then o and w. Shortly afterwards, I finished the apostrophe. I had a hard time with m because it was so hard merging paths by copy-pasting while maintaining the angles and the forms of the outline.

This is my first time in attempting to create a typeface that is not in pen and paper, and I would say time really flies fast when you’re doing it. The overall experience is gratifying though, but I’m not very confident about what I’m making, so I need feedback. I wanted this to be a display face, so I should probably put more contrast next time. However, I’m still working without any guidelines as to what it will actually look like. As some glyphs follow logically from others (like n to m, and vice versa), there is an unconscious guideline that shapes the whole typeface.

Here is a screenshot of the typeface in action:

First few glyphs of a sans typeface I'm making

I’m still a bit worried about the r and the w, so feedback is greatly appreciated. I would love to hear constructive criticisms and suggestions.

In my vain attempt to look for very readable and legible default WordPress themes that don’t sacrifice design, I found this.

I don’t want to sound arrogant, but excuse me, those-who-told-us-to-just-adjust-the-browser’s-text-size, do you really want to make your readers resize their browser text everytime they visit your site?

Oh, and your site happens to be a blog. Ouch.

Now, now. This is where everything you say, you who-told-us-to-just-adjust-the-browser’s-text-size-everytime-we-visit-a-certain-site-which-happens-to-be-a-blog, falls apart. What does a blog contain? It contains text. Lots of it. Er. I suppose there are those pure photoblogs, but with common sense still in place, those are obviously not part of the equation.

Moving along, text is meant to be read, and thus, quoting Bringhurst in his excellent book, The Elements of Typographic Style (3.0), “typography exists to honour content.” Yes, it really does. People go crazy over type. Like I do. An amateur, perhaps, but I still love type. So, the web is here not to make us drool over eyecandy stuff, but to deliver information. That’s why it’s called the information superhighway. That’s why I also theorized back then, when I was a fan of green-text-and-black-background websites, the word Internet to be a portmanteau of the words information and network (I was really off on this one). Therefore, when readers or surfers visit a website, they want to get hold of information, and they do so by reading. It logically follows that the way the information is presented is very clear, and cuts the crap.

So it goes like the following.

1. I open up my favorite browser (definitely not Internet Explorer).
2. I type something in the address bar and I press enter.
3. I wait for the page to load (unfortunately, I still use dial-up)… By the way, this step is optional.
4. I read. Or, I click a few links (step three again, crap). Then I read (I try to, that is).
5. ???
6. Er. Profit! Or not, possibly.

Step five is very crucial, because it is where the reader actually receives or perceives the information. Therein lies the cruelties of letter-spacing: -1px; and other evil hindrances to communication. Therein also lies the part wherein some say “STFU don’t rant, just resize your browser’s text-size you nut-head.”

Now, now. Don’t get cocky. Be thankful that you have readers who actually care about and read your posts. So please, do them a favor and make your content legible and readable. It would be a pain to resize the browser’s text-size, or to select the content and paste it in some nice word processor and typeset it just so we can read it, no?

If step five went well, then step six would probably result in Profit! But then again, your content also matters, so if what you wrote was really off, then, sorry. You have to do better in communicating with your audience.

For reference, here are two excellent articles on web typography, courtesy of Information Architects.

• The 100% Easy-2-Read Standard
• Web Design is 95% Typography

It is early in the morning night, strictly speaking, but may I say, it is late in the evening.

It is in the fullness of the night that my mind begins to wander to many places, revisiting old thoughts and forming new ones. It is when my beloved yet elusive muse whispers with her soft voice trilling in my ear.

It is as if the night, in all its mystery and beauty, is a prerequisite itself for inspiration.

My weary body, however, would not permit my mind to wander for too long. My eyes and then my thoughts would gradually blur, and in a blink of a moment, I would find myself asleep: revelations and insights washed unto the deepness of my unconscious, losing them indefinitely.

Losing thoughts or knowledge is just as painful as any loss. The loss, the pain—it is a longing for understanding what has been understood, for thinking what has been thought of. It is not fury nor anger. It neither is a wallowing nor sorrow. It is the fury of the mind, the angst, for not being able to immediately know what has been known; it is the wallowing of the soul; it is the sorrow of the rationale, and an emotion thus is most painful for a human.

For this reason, we must seek to compile and archive what we think of, daily. For if everyday we think of an idea that needs nourishing, but through the weakness of the body it dies, then it is lost, but not forever; however, it is still lost, and it might take time, that damned chariot, its wheels forever set in motion, for the idea to spring back into little life.

And we must relish this temporal jubilee wherein we are free to write down what we wish to write, or let alone think. For in the future, when power in its purest drives men, the truth will become lies which then become the truth; and this will result in the doubting of which is true, ad infinitum, and only the ones in power have the power to impose their unquestionable truths or not-truths.

Inasmuch as we want to rely on our capacious memory for thoughts and knowledge, it is inevitable that it will betray us, for our body, in which our mind springs forth, degenerates and dies. As much as paper rots and decays, however, it lives longer than we do.

It is early in the morning night, strictly speaking, but may I say, it is late in the evening.

It is in the fullness of the night that my mind begins to wander to many places, revisiting old thoughts and forming new ones. It is when my beloved yet elusive muse whispers with her soft voice trilling in my ear.

It is as if the night, in all its mystery and beauty, is a prerequisite itself for inspiration.

Amidst the fatigue mine eyes suffer, I strive to write, for only in the night I could only write, for I fear that the chariot would decapitate me from behind any moment under the sunlight.

Sorry for the late update; I have been really busy during the past week (and this upcoming week isn’t looking good as well). Anyway…

Brace for epic.

Museo Sans – A sans-serif companion to Museo

Museo Sans is a companion to the slab-serif typeface, Museo by Jos Buivenga. Museo is one of my favorite typefaces, and then this comes into the scene. I love how the sans feels clean and fresh, yet with the proper weight and size, feels strong – but not too strong. Its neutrality is a perfect companion to the smooth Museo.

2 weights (500 Regular/500 Italic) can be downloaded for free (click on Jos’ name). The other 8 can be purchased as a family, or individually.

Via iLT.

Now, where do I get that money…

Is it just me, or is Helvetica really that ubiquitous? I noticed it just now. Even our school has it all over the place, along with other crappy type. It’s borderline annoying when designers keep falling back on a tried and tested face. I can’t blame them though—Helvetica’s just gorgeous (but I like Univers and Avenir more). At least they’re not using Arial (although I’ve seen several instances of Arial Blacks recently).

I find myself having symptoms of Typoholism. Whenever I am surrounded by type (which is effectively all the time), I find myself trying my best to identify or recognize a typeface. Even my classmates are horrified whenever I shout “Calibri!” or “Times New Roman!” They also do not understand why Comic Sans MS sucks. Rather, some people, especially those over at Café Ten Titas in Gateway mall (I currently don’t have a picture. If I get the chance to buy a nice camera, then I’ll definitely upload it) do not know how to use Comic Sans in its proper context. I mean, a café embodied by a compendium of over a hundred recipes (or so they say) uses Comic Sans MS for their logo? For everyone to see and recognize? Someone with a good taste for food (I assume) clearly has a lackluster taste for type!

Really, it’s tempting to paste Ban Comic Sans or Design Police stickers all over places.

It would be satisfying to see Design Police stickers that say “Comic Sans is Illegal” all over Café Ten Tita’s place.

Here I am, and it’s 4:05 in the morning. Yes, I did not sleep. I will have to leave in two hours’ time for school.

It has been a tiring week and I have been going home at earlier times because I have to catch up on sleep. Sometimes, I even find myself sleeping a class away.

I still have tons of work to do, as we have a CS project to accomplish, an oral exam in theology, my freelance work with a client that I couldn’t quite understand (he’s got a severely broken English), and more and more and more stuff to come.

I’ll be off to bed now.

I have recently started studying C++ for our CS project. We were assigned a sorting algorithm, and the project output should be a program that accepts string inputs, and sorts them. But here’s the twist: the sorting process must be shown to the user, using animations and other visual elements.

Our group got the BST, which is relatively easy to implement, but what would be the pain in the neck is the graphical nature of the output.

And so we’ll use SFML. More on this later. I still have to browse through the docs and whatnot.

I really do not know what to say on a usual first post.

So here it is, in its full minimalistic and obviously lethargy-induced glory:

FIRST