Saw Type Development III

Previous post here.

Over the weeks I have been working on the glyphs for the saw tooth typeface:

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These are super rough, and it’s my first typeface! I transported them into the Glyphs app:

And here is a Zoom in:

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At this stage, I decided to contact Anne-Marie Geals, who I had a conversation with earlier in the module. She has kindly agreed to give me feedback on my typeface. While I did this, she suggested that I:

What I think will be important for you to do is a ‘Short Project Description’ for the typeface aspect. It will help you enormously.
I think that it is vital in terms of assessment that you show conclusively (evidenced) that you have thought about the typeface in terms of;
• What do you wish to convey with it – e.g.. emotions, feelings, a message, and does the end product communicate what you intended?• Who is it for – target audience. Have you tested it in the target audience?• How do you intend/envision it will it be used – e.g. headlines, body text, editorial, printed, online.
To give you an example, I had to write one for my MA, and it was so useful. I referred back to it every day;

A new typeface inspired by, and designed for, Wales and the Welsh to help facilitate the use of the declining language. Its aesthetics will be culturally expressive, yet practical and include the full set of glyphs required for bilingual typesetting. It will be designed for long, immersive reading in both print and screen-based media.

You can see the description clearly states what I was aiming for, who it is for, what it is for, and how it is intended to be used. I had to evidence that I had considered the needs of screen and print based media in my designs, and whether my typeface functioned as well as I hoped in these environments (evidence of testing). I also had to evidence how my Celtic visual theme/style had been inspired by my research. I also evidenced that I had tested the working font on Welsh people and had received feedback.

Nadine Chahine, whose Font li Beirut project I have previously covered, describes a typeface brief as such:

Type design is equal parts suffering and euphoria. It is a walk along a winding road that goes on for many weeks and months before it’s done. A type design brief is like a charter path: It asks you questions, and the answers will guide you to where you want to be.

Nadine Chahine

So, what do I want this typeface to be/do? Here’s an unstructured list of my thoughts:

• Personal response to the area of Walthamstow
• Embody the history of varied industry in the area
• The saw tooth roofs and the Warner house arches used to inspire the shapes represent everyday people
• Variable typeface with axes on width, weight and roundness
• Display typeface rather than for long passages of text
• Showcase the ethnic diversity of the area
• San-serif font

There is also a difference between what the typeface is now and what it could be. At the moment it is just an uppercase, and doesn’t have a full set of glyphs. It only caters for the Latin font, and doesn’t include characters needed for European languages. To make it truly represent Walthamstow it needs to cater for Tamil, Bengali and Devanagari scripts too. I haven’t tested it either, or considered the difference between print or screen.

I’m going to copy Geal’s statement directly, pasting in my details in order to construct something myself.

A new variable typeface inspired by the architecture of Walthamstow to embody the innovation powered by the community. Its aesthetics will be geometric to represent the community’s burgeoning awareness of typographic style. Its will shift its appearance on weight, width and roundness axes and include the full set of glyphs in Latin and European scripts. It will be designed for eye-catching display type in both print and screen-based media and for free personal use by the community.

Next post here.

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