Typeface Updates 003

Typeface design has turned out to be an activity that’s easy to start but very hard to master. It’s relatively straightforward to get to know your tools and learn how to draw basic glyphs. The hardest part is making the entire text look good. You run into problems when you like a glyph on its own, but it catches your eye when it’s part of the text. As Matthew Carter said, “Type is a beautiful group of letters, not a group of beautiful letters.”

The biggest challenge with personal projects like this is the lack of restrictions. When you have a list of requirements, it provides the necessary constraints that shape your work. Without them, you tend to stagger from one idea to another, with no clear goal to measure your progress against. As a result, the design changes frequently.

But this lack of restrictions also has its advantages, as it creates a lot of room for experimentation. You get to understand why some typefaces have a curved leg on an ‘R’ and others are straight by just trying it yourself. You might copy an element from a typeface you like and discover why it works. You end up learning more in a given time by trying different things.

However, it’s hard not to hit a wall when you don’t have a specific goal. Knowing that making it good will take more time than just learning how to do it adds another layer of frustration. Even though there was never any particular goal to start with and it was always about learning, It feels like a failure not to see your projects “finished”.

Note to self: Never set goals like “designing a typeface for your site.” It’s too concrete, too result-oriented. It undermines the playful aspect of the process. Instead, focus on the journey.

I don’t want this to become a project I feel obligated to finish; I want it to remain a toy.