KyuuketsukiThis%20FontStruction%20was%20selected%20by%20FontStruct%20staff.

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Zefyrinus Sun, 6th July, 7:35 AM

Is the vertical bars that are to the left of most of the capital letters, and the horisontal bars above them too much? Should I just remove them?

Mind you that this font isn't complete yet. I'm gonna add more characters to it and maybe work a little more with the accented characters that I have now because they don't look completely right.

Tgray Mon, 7th July, 11:50 AM

I like the calligraphic touch of the detached vertical bars on the left of the caps — but those marks above confused me at first as they look very much like tildes in shape and position. As for the pictographic accents themselves (celtic knot circumflex?) — woah, cool and crazy idea. If you added these for purely decorative purposes, my hat's off to you for the weird and wonderful effect befitting the baroque script of nocturnal immortals. To my mostly-english reading eyes they don't really read if they are intended to be those accents, though. Also, I would make the tildes like the marks currently above the regular caps. As a whole, the accents should be roughly equivalent in weight across the whole range, so beef up the acute and diaeresis, etc...and then again, I can tell there is something behind the somewhat batty logic at play here and perhaps you should keep all these quirks intact. All considered, good work!

PaulHorton Tue, 8th July, 8:13 AM

Impressive! Beautiful!!!

Zefyrinus Tue, 8th July, 9:23 AM

Oh wow, thanks for the comments both of you!

The things that look like tildes, they were supposed to be like just these swirly decorations, I can't really explain it but it exists in some calligraphy styles. But since Fontstruct doesn't handle curves very well, they came off as very angular. Maybe I need to rework that part a little...

I wanted to include different symbols in the font, but couldn't come up with many things associated with vampires (those that are, are the blood splatters and the ¨ which is supposed to be bite marks from a vampire), so I just took symbols that were associated with magic (the celtic knot/triquetra) or dark stuff (the upside-down crosses) in general. Well, there is still garlic and holy water that's associated with vampires, but I didn't want to include stuff that the vampires are weak against. Anyway, what I was thinking with the celtic symbol is that it's somewhat triangle shaped, just like ^. And for the caron/hacek I can have the same thing except upside-down. Maybe it is a problem that they might not be understood to be diacritics, but then I thought that if one writes in a language that uses diacritics regularly, one will understand from the context what the symbols are supposed to mean.

Oh, and I need to fix the spacing between the letters btw. Fontstruct doesn't support kerning, so that's why I let some of the thin, decorative parts of the letters go outside the left boundary. Also, the blank-space is way too thin. Does anyone know what regulates the width of the space?

williaum Wed, 9th July, 2:13 PM

Hi Zefyrinus. Killer fontstruction! I really like the unconventional and ornamental approach to diacritics. They might cause confusion (or not — I'm also mostly a monolingual English speaker), but this is a playful display font after all and it's great to see you push the cutting edge! I wouldn't have guessed the umlaut (is that what you mean by diaeresis, Tgray?) was a neck wound, but that's also brilliant. Any way to give em that archetypal trickle of blood without losing it?

I know there must be other iconography you can draw on (there's of course the bat with spread wings — or one hanging upside down off the bottom of the letterform — which might work well for the carons if it fits in your grid)... but I guess I'm feeling kinda rusty on vampire lore...lol :)

williaum Wed, 9th July, 2:17 PM

sorry, that wasn't very clear.
bat with wings spread up = caron
bat hanging off letter = cedilla?

williaum Wed, 9th July, 2:28 PM

Ok, one more thought and I promise I'll be brief.

I like how with the “I” and “L” you connected the above, admittedly tilde-ish swashy bit with the vertical stroke on the left side of those characters. What happens if you try this approach with the others?

Zefyrinus Thu, 10th July, 10:39 AM

Gee thanks! :D Diaresis is the same as umlaut (well, their usage is different but the character itself is identical for both). Should I have blood coming out of it? I did actually do that with the semicolon, but it's hard to do a blood drop that looks good. I'll think about it...

I can't believe I forgot about the bat! Thanks for reminding. Then I'm also planning on putting actual horns on the Vietnamese letters that have the horn diacritic.

The connecting line on the I and L was something that kinda happened because those two letters are so thin. But that's a great idea you had, maybe people won't mistake that ornament for ~ then. I'll try it...

Zefyrinus Thu, 10th July, 10:46 AM

Oh, one thing: I see that some people have already downloaded the font, even though it's not finished yet, which is kinda a shame. I'm still trying out what space there should be between characters, so the whole font is unconsistent and so, so please don't download it quite yet.

williaum Thu, 10th July, 9:20 PM

I like what you did to the A. I think this will have a very unifying effect if you apply the same connection to all the caps.

As for perfecting the display metrics — just know they don't actually apply to the truetype files we can download. Yes, you can polish how the font displays on fontstruct by using the ”kerning trick” which I believe you have discovered (shifting characters to the right in the fontstructor will increase the space between this character and the previous character in all display modes). But upon downloading, all these rough metrics are tossed out for a default one-brick setting. It’s up to the user to properly kern the font in each instance it is used (for those of us who can).

Have fun with the bats! :)

Zefyrinus Fri, 11th July, 9:33 AM

Huh, you think so? I think the A got uglier. Hmm...

None of the metrics stay when one downloads? Huh!

Zefyrinus Fri, 15th August, 8:28 AM

OK, now I've made the upper bar connect with the left bar for all instances where it's possible. I also changed the diaeresis. The font could be downloaded and used now, but I'm still gonna add more special characters + Japanese kana. Oh, and I need to work with some of the diacritics; grave, acute, etc. I'm not sure what I should do with them...

williaum Sat, 16th August, 2:24 AM

Hey Zefyrinus, I see you’ve updated this spooky script. How do you like it with the changes? I’m digging ’em.

Those ornamental strokes look good to me now all linked up like. They’ve taken on a flourished rose identity all their own, standing out from the perpendicularly constructed caps. All thorns and branching leaves, maybe a bit of creaking casket tossed in too with how they contain and frame the figures.

All that effusion gave me some ideas for iconography! Do you have enough resolution to make the grave accents into little tilting casket shapes? I mean, come on, grave = casket – I can’t say if the double meaning is genius or groan-inducing. Or both. You decide. As for the acute...maybe a tilted ankh? Vampiric crucifixes are often crossbred or replaced with ankhs, referencing themes of eternal life and immortality while also communicating an overtone of rebirth and redemption. Or something like that.

All this really just makes me think of the unspeakably beautiful classic anime sequel: Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust. If you haven’t seen it, check it out!!!

Hey Zefyrinus, I see you’ve updated this spooky script. How do you like it with the changes? I’m digging ’em.
<br/>
<br/>Those ornamental strokes look good to me now all linked up like. They’ve taken on a flourished rose identity all their own, standing out from the perpendicularly constructed caps. All thorns and branching leaves, maybe a bit of creaking casket tossed in too with how they contain and frame the figures.
<br/>
<br/>All that effusion gave me some ideas for iconography! Do you have enough resolution to make the grave accents into little tilting casket shapes? I mean, come on, <i>grave = casket</i> – I can’t say if the double meaning is genius or groan-inducing. Or both. You decide. As for the acute...maybe a tilted ankh? Vampiric crucifixes are often crossbred or replaced with ankhs, referencing themes of eternal life and immortality while also communicating an overtone of rebirth and redemption. Or something like that.
<br/>
<br/>All this really just makes me think of the unspeakably beautiful classic anime sequel: <a href="http://www.vampirehunterdbloodlust.com/">Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust</a>. If you haven’t seen it, <i>check</i> it <i>out</i>!!!

Zefyrinus Sat, 16th August, 6:08 AM

Thanks for all the praise again! ^^;

I still don't know if I like it better this way ot not, but I guess it's allright.

What's a casket? I can't find that word in the dictionary I'm using.

I hadn't thought about replacing the grave and acute accents with symbols, but maybe I should do that. The reason why in the current form one is so thick and the other so narrow is just because upper left to lower right strokes are different from lower left to upper right strokes, because of the angle of the "pen". Replacing these too with symbols would be a convenient way of getting rid of that problem. I'll try and see what I could do with an ankh.

I haven't seen that anime you mentioned. I checked link, though I couldn't exactly understand what that website was about. Are you supposed to be able to watch the anime for free there?

williaum Sat, 16th August, 6:53 AM

Casket = Tomb = Pine Box = Coffin. There’s the word – coffin – that should properly translate. Here’s an image sorta demonstrating the position I was imagining (actually, the “fat” end should sit on top, methinks).

That anime is not free, unfortunately – though totally worth it if you can find it to rent or purchase. The website I linked to is the official site, though not much is on display there except for the image galleries of stills from the movie.

Good Luck with the ’structing!

Casket = Tomb = Pine Box = Coffin. There’s the word – <i>coffin</i> – that should properly translate. Here’s an image sorta demonstrating the position I was imagining (actually, the “fat” end should sit on top, methinks).
<br/>
<br/>That anime is not free, unfortunately – though totally worth it if you can find it to rent or purchase. The website I linked to is the official site, though not much is on display there except for the image galleries of stills from the movie.
<br/>
<br/>Good Luck with the ’structing!

Zefyrinus Mon, 18th August, 7:58 AM

Oh, a coffin! I'll use it. I've changed the acute accent to an ankh now, but I'm not completely sure if it works. I've also added the bat for the caron.

All right. I'll keep an eye out for that anime if I happen to come across it somewhere again.

Zefyrinus Mon, 18th August, 8:04 AM

WTF? Where did the ankh go? It didn't get saved even though I saved twice before exiting! *sigh*

Zefyrinus Tue, 26th August, 3:36 AM

Damnit! Fonststruct just won't save my changes. I just spent a lot of time recreating the ogonek which had previously been lost, as well as adding circumflexes on those characters that were missing that, and even though I saved several times, the changes don't show up.

I tried making a coffin btw. But it was impossible to do, it just looked like the pope's hat.

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