To recap my typeface is an adaptation of Helvetica based on the word stylish and the idea of the word style within other cultures particularly African, tribal and cult horror.
This is my final typeface, I am really pleased with the overall look. I think with the added strokes like, extra crossbars ect. are really effective in creating the cultural style look I was going for. I wanted to make the typeface look really geometric and also slightly like symbols you'd see on tribal style design.
On the left you can see my original letter C, I thought that when placed with the other letters it looked weird as I hadn't measured it to the same angle and the extra stroke was too thin looking. So I used a reflection of the same angle I used for the extra diagonal stroke in the D and placed it as part of the C. I think this now looks a lot more successful as it works with the other letters much better and as it doesn't split the C in half you can define the letter better.
Going on from the letters I had done last time this is my letter J. I basically wanted it to be the same style as the I that id done so it was really simple. This was also my reasoning for only doing one version of this letter.
Next on the left is the original letter K from Helvetica and on the right is my version. I made a really simple change to do this I just altered the top diagonal so it came from the bottom of the vertical stem of the letter. This simple change completely changes the feel of this letter, it creates this huge white space in the middle of the letter and brings a simple and geometric look.
This is my letter L, I based it on the idea of using two crossbars on the A that creates this doubled up look but just applied it to the vertical stroke.
I made this M by splitting the regular Helvetica letter in two then adjusting the angles making them more obtuse. I then put the halves back together but so they crossed over which completely changes the look of the letter. I really love this letter as the crossover create so many triangle shapes within the letter which mimics the look of African pattern.
Here are two ideas for my letter N, I did the first design by adding the diagonal but I thought that id done too many letters in this style and it was looking to overdone and simple. So I changed it by adding a horizontal line through the middle instead which I thought worked really well because it mimics the crossbars in the A which was my starting point for the rest of the alphabet.
This is my letter O. I started out with the idea of doing a lowercase letter o with three full stop type dots underneath but when furthering this idea it looked odd being the only small letter in the whole alphabet. So instead I took the uppercase O and added a rotated full stop in the middle to make it more pattern orientated.
This is based on the letter P I previously hand drew from my grid. I also based it on my other letters that used diagonals I wanted to make sure my diagonals all used common angles so they fitted well together and to a grid.
I made the letter Q on the left by simply extending the small diagonal already present in the letter Q but I thought it was a little too simple. So for the letter on the right I took the idea of making a gap that I had applied to my letter P to this. I think this is much more effective as the diagonal becomes part of the outer shape and it all goes back to the basic geometric forms you see in African art.
Creating my letter R was really simple as I wanted my letters to have some sort of connected look so you could tell they were all part of the same typeface so It was just a matter of extending part of the letter P.
Creating my S was one of the most challenging letters because there are a lot of curves involved and I wanted to make it more geometric. Someone in my crit had pointed out that if I made the lines too straight it could look like a backwards z or even a nazi symbol so I really wanted to avoid that. The first design was made by just straightening part of the letter and keeping some curves but it just didn't seem to look right at all. Instead I decided to shorten the lower part and adding in a stroke following the same angle I had used letter D which worked much better as I could keep most of the curves and still add a geometric quality.
The letter T was another really easy one as I just added an extra arm stroke like the style of the A again. I made sure the gap between both arms was the same size as the thickness of one arm so it didn't just look like a random measurement I wanted to create a balance for every letter.
I wanted the U and V to follow the same principles and just completely close off the open counters completely and make closed counters instead. I really like this simple symbol looking style they have.
I wanted my W to basically be an upside down version of the M. I tried just simply flipping it but I then realised the angles of the W were different so I simply changed them and made them less vertical.
I was unsure about the X because it was already a really angular and geometric letter without changing it at all. I first tried closing it off like the U and V but it didn't look like an X anymore it looked like a camping symbol. Instead I added a stroke through the middle similar to the letter N. It looks like a mix between an x and a * symbol but I really like this design compared to the first.
Once again I was unsure about the Y and tried closing it off but it looked like a wine glass. So instead I added diagonals coming downwards, it kind of looks like an x with a stem but I like that they look similar as it makes it a more complete alphabet.
Once again I had decided how I wanted the Z to look from the start by creating a hand drawn version from my grid but I still did some variations to see if it could be improved. But overall the design on the right which was my original is the most effective.
I created this image to see how the typeface would look like in a working sentence. I think the overall look is really effective and definitely portrays the tribal look I was going for as you can imagine it being used to brand products to show their cultural origin or must like my inspiration from American horror story you can see it being used for a horror films branding also. I added a photo background to show how the geometric look can interact well with a more textural and organic background. Overall i'm really happy with the final typeface and would like to possibly play with creating an alternative typeface possibly going back to some of the other ideas I had when hand drawing ideas about gaps in the letters.
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