AuthorTopic: Pixel Fonts - Week 6  (Read 1989 times)

Offline ChrisWEarly

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Pixel Fonts - Week 6

on: June 14, 2016, 07:31:47 am
Hey all.

I've been designing pixel fonts for six weeks now. And only just now remembered this place.
Not sure I'm wanting critique- but, if you have any I'm open.
Would just love to know what you guys think of these in general :)


[edit: these are JUST from week 6. In total there are 60+ fonts :D)

(btw you can follow me @ChrisWEarly on twitter if you'd like, I post new fonts every day :D)
« Last Edit: June 14, 2016, 12:21:27 pm by ChrisWEarly »

Offline drain.

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Re: Pixel Fonts - Week 6

Reply #1 on: June 14, 2016, 11:07:42 am
I don't know a lot about sans and serifs and all that shizz, but they look great! And I can't really give any advice from a font-maker's point of view.

However as a pixel artist, some anti-aliasing can take all of this to the next level!

edit: I tried anti-aliasing them myself, but realized you uploaded them in .jpg format  :(
« Last Edit: June 14, 2016, 11:15:28 am by drain. »

Offline ChrisWEarly

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Re: Pixel Fonts - Week 6

Reply #2 on: June 14, 2016, 12:15:32 pm
I don't know a lot about sans and serifs and all that shizz, but they look great! And I can't really give any advice from a font-maker's point of view.

However as a pixel artist, some anti-aliasing can take all of this to the next level!

edit: I tried anti-aliasing them myself, but realized you uploaded them in .jpg format  :(
Intentional. I plan on selling these, and a png would give someone access to work I want to be paid for. Sorry, but I hope you understand.

But perhaps! I haven't tried anti-aliasing, just doing black everything to make sure I hone in on making things as legible as possible. I'll see what smoothing out some of them does :)

Offline yrizoud

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Re: Pixel Fonts - Week 6

Reply #3 on: June 14, 2016, 01:35:13 pm
For pixel fonts, whenever possible, pure color is best. They are designed to be used at exactly the target device's resolution. (for larger text, you'll use a larger type, not zoom up the font)
If a font is so small+detailed that you need AA at base size, there *is* a legibility problem. It may not be a big problem for an artistic font used sparingly, but it may look annoying to read a lot of text with it - For example, the perspective-corrected text here:
http://pixeljoint.com/pixelart/80893.htm

Larger fonts benefit more from AA, but it's actually much better to design vector font, as the AA can be auto-generated by taking the screen's gamma into account, or use a system like Cleartype which takes the sub-pixels of the LCD into account.

Offline eishiya

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Re: Pixel Fonts - Week 6

Reply #4 on: June 14, 2016, 02:54:00 pm
Your JPGs won't stop anyone from taking the font, the pixels are still clear because there's so much contrast. Just reducing your image to 2 colours gets back the original:

Saving as a JPG only works when there is subtle information that can be lost, such as AA or fine, low-contrast details like what you'd get in a drawing. Don't bother with that kind of protection for your fonts. People who want to steal your work will find a way to do so, and it probably won't even be that difficult.
To make money, focus on the font's features - e.g. accented letters (of which preview only a small subset), including multiple sizes and weights of the same face (which is more challenging for a pixel font), and perhaps features like ligatures. Also, while pixel fonts often have standard spacing, some of these look like they would benefit from some kerning work, so that's something else you can include in your fonts without it being steal-able from an image.

I'm also not sure it' a good idea to sell that Star Wars font. It's not technically illegal, but typically people distribute fonts like that for free both to be on the safe side, and because that's just the non-jerk thing to do since they're so heavily based on someone else's work.

Bottom left is hard to read, but I suspect increasing the letter spacing to 2px instead of 1 would help a lot.
The big example in the middle doesn't really feel like a "pixel" font, it feels a bit rough, like a decently-hinted font being rendered at a small resolution with no AA, rather than something hand-made. Also, the long tails on Щ and Ц aren't very readable at that size, and don't quite feel like they belong because they don't have the same style of weight variation as the rest of the letters.

All in all, the fact that you're doing 10+ fonts per week shows. These fonts look nice, but some could benefit from taking some extra care to make them more cohesive and more usable, especially if you're planning to sell them.

Also, since they're pixel fonts, you may have made some clones of existing fonts unintentionally, especially in the smaller sizes. The top left and the 2nd from top on the right in particular look like things I've seen frequently elsewhere, simply because there are only so many ways you can use that space and even fewer ways to make it look good. I would avoid selling those fonts. Even though you put all the same work in, it might not go over well with customers and other font designers. However, it would be fine if they're included as additional sizes of other fonts that have the same general look.
« Last Edit: June 14, 2016, 03:15:44 pm by eishiya »