I'm going to be doing an independent study on type this semester and I am expecting it to be an enormous challenge. This is Hoefler & Frere-Jones Acropolis and I fell in love with it last night.
You can look at it here: Acropolis
Right away you can tell it has historical roots but it doesn't look quite like an old font and doesn't look cheesy, like it's trying too hard. Effortlessness! Isn't that what we are all striving to look like we have?
During my stint at Atari I tried to make just two characters (3 and 5) on my own and it was ridiculously difficult. My letters looked lumpy and strangely proportioned, no matter how much I sketched and refined and refined again, again, again. I'm see the reason why type design isn't covered in our curriculum--it would take another 4 years to start to get it right...While I keep saying I don't think I want to go to grad school I feel like I might have to at some point to really delve into the things that get me.
Talking with a very cool alum from CMU who was kind enough to respond to me, I definitely think type design would be something I want to look into. From what I hear it's definitely something you have to be crazy about, so I guess this semester will be a good indication of whether it's for me. At -least- it will give me a more critical eye.
1 comment:
Glad you like the font -- it was quite a lot of fun to draw, but very challenging as indeed you suspect. If you're interested in the "Grecian" genre (fonts that have chamfered corners), you'll find some historical background, here:
http://www.typography.com/ask/showBlog.php?blogID=34
Good luck with everything!
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