Kitty Typeface development and final

In a fairly quick turn around today, I sent off the uppercase typeface to Kitty as a .ttf file. The face has proven fairly straight forward to design and programme over the last few days and features 2 contextual alternatives for each uppercase character. I used illustrator to draw out the basic forms and then software called Glyphs to apply the code and export to ttf. Glyphs is going to be essential for my work over the course of 506 as I look to explore type and possibly delve into generative typography. Therefore I need to find a way of cracking it or ask Mike if it is possible for the uni to obtain a license.

The development started by identifying the typeface or at least one similar to the fishmonger sign from research. A search on whatthefont.com suggested it holds similarities to Clarendon so I decided to use Superclarendon italic and bold as my starting point. I then merely traced over the top of each character using a round illustrator brush to give a certain boldness and avoid the slightly fussy nature of the original typeface, a specification given my Kitty. The result can be seen below in red before and after I added a drop shadow line and then also a variable in which the lines didn't touch the body of the text but still acted as a drop. Upon peer reflection, some of my peers prefer the partial drop shadow but when shown to Kitty she much prefered the full line, which I can understand as perhaps the partial still required more polish.

 With the typestyle approved and sorted it was time to start working on the contextual alternatives precoding. However, before this step, there was one change to the typeface name as it now took on the sentence DEEP FRIED APATHY. Of course, form the two statements I had constructed I already in some cases had 3 contextual orientations for certain letters but many had 0 so I went through the alphabet drawing some more out. Using this method of type generation obviously doesn't account for a letters relationship with others, so occasionally I would take letters out and try them in one of the sentences or a new word. In some cases, I mistakenly created 4 letters but so as to not throw off my coding I went with my favourite three.

Once the full 26 letters (78 characters) uppercase alphabet was completed it was time to turn my attention to some basic punctuation. I wanted the face to be highly usable for Kitty instead of just an uneditable vector logotype. The punctuation proved quite hard to size correctly as the full stops and commas etc came out very large when exported into Glyphs. I then finally prepared a colour pallet based on Kitty's indication of the colours she would like to use on the project, giving the type some idea of context. 

Once the illustrator side of development was complete it was time to take the characters into Glyphs and start with the coding and kerning. Each glyph has its own code as well as being recognised as its assigned letter, for example, A has the characters: A, A.ss01 and A.ss02 that are all interchangeable when typing the letter A on a keyboard. Once all 90 glyphs, including punctuation, were input it was time to begin the coding. On this occasion, the code was appropriated and inspired by the one used in this advanced contextual alternatives guide on the Glyphs website. Essentially it uses a feature called a Calt command which is specific to contextual alternatives. Letters are grouped into classes depending on whether they are a consonant or a vowel and these are expressed either via Con0,1,2 or Voc0,1,2. Commands are then inputted via the Calt function to replace a repeated member of respective classes if it is up to 10 letters succeeding its previous use. The basic code was appropriated but I coded out to 10 spaces between so as to make sure most words and short sentences wouldn't have repeated characters. The reason for contextual alternatives is to give a slight handwritten aesthetic that can't normally be achieved in computer set type.

Finally I played around with the type a little to ensure kerning between letters was suitably tight, another requirement given by Kitty.

She seemed satisfied with the results however I look foward to meeting again soon and discussing the next step with regards to the collaboration and any possible changes.