Grid Font: Sketches

I was extremely frustrated trying to come up with an idea for my own font. It is super hard to think of something original while staring a grid! I think I was jinxing myself just a bit because once I started to play around I got somewhere.

The first picture are my beginning ideas, mostly me trying to get used to working on the grid. This allowed me to start trying different things.

These two sets of pictures (below) are one direction I tried to play around with. I thought it was going to be the font I went with, but alas it was not.

Below is the idea I worked out the most. As you can see it was a favorite (otherwise I would have never gotten to “z”). After showing my professor this, he warned me about how thin it was, especially for my focus. I wanted to create a text font that could work at small sizes like 9 pt. He told me that if I continue with my thickness of letters then all the details I created (this trapzoid esq shape) would be lost. Sad that my hard work went to waste (not really), I tried to rework this concept.

Here (below) is my solution to my thickness problem. I tried to add extra boxes wherever I felt it made sense. My trapezoid shape turned into a diamond shape, that I actual prefer.

I was dreading the italic versions of my font, because I could not wrap my head around how to make something on a grid italic. I got over that with research of upright italics and how they are typically more narrow and taller than its regular counterpart.

Here is my sketch for my italics. I think it’ll be easier to make my italics once my font is digitized.

I think my life will be easier overall when I start digitizing this project. Will be sure to let you know how it goes.

Until next time…