But before I get into the modifications I have made to a few of Jetsonville’s characters, this week I also have created a first draft of the Jetsonville project webpage, to which I will post a link here. There’s still more to do on the website, but I think I’ve gotten a good start on it. Take a look.
Now, here’s the current version of the Jetsonville font incorporating changes based on feedback:
In the illustration above, modified characters are shown in red, and the previous versions of some of these characters are shown in a line at the bottom of the graphic. Here are the details on the modifications:
Lowercase “a”: I have had people tell me they liked the previous “a”, and I thought it was fun and cute. However, I also received some feedback that people wished it were more legible and easier to read.
Well, that was version number 17 of the lowercase “a” for Jetsonville. I have spent a good deal of this week brainstorming and experimenting on more legible versions of “a” that will still fit with the rest of the font’s characters. I almost went with version 22, but then I had some more ideas. The version you see here is version 54. It’s not as eccentric as the previous “a”, and it’s not as fun. It doesn’t slant, and I thought the slant of the previous “a” added a nice motion and rhythm to the font. But I think the new “a” definitely makes for easier reading and I think it fits with the rest of the characters. So here it is.
Of course, changing the lowercase “a” meant I also then had to change all the accented characters and ligature characters that use the lowercase “a” as well. I changed them to match version 22, and then I changed them again to match version 54.
Lowercase “e”: I received feedback from more than one source that the lowercase “e” looked too wide among the rest of the letters. So I made it slightly narrower, and you know what? They were right! I think the “e” looks much better now at a slightly narrower width. (The new “a” above is the same slightly narrower width, and I think that’s one of the reasons the new “a” works better, too.)
How did I determine how much to narrow both of these characters? Previously they both used the same arch as the lowercase “c” and “d”, and they were the same width as these two letters. I narrowed the “a” and “e” so they are now the width of the arch in the lowercase “d”—up to the left edge of the vertical stem that is the ascender. As far as I’m concerned, that narrowing makes all the difference in the world as far as both typographic color and readability are concerned.
Lowercase “f”: One reviewer said they thought that the lowercase “f” looked unfinished or cut off. That was very perceptive of them, because the previous “f” was derived from the left half of the uppercase “A”. So, yes, it was “cut off.”
After I finished experimenting with the lowercase “a”, I spent a fair amount of time this week coming up with other versions of a lowercase “f”. You will notice that there are two “f” characters shown above. The first is slightly taller and slightly heavier than the second, and at this point I am not sure which works better. They are close enough that I don’t think I will include an alternate glyph in the finished font, but I need to use them both for a while to see which I think works better with the rest of the characters.
The previous “f” character was version 7. The two “f” characters shown above are versions 23 and 30.
Because of the design of these new “f” characters, there is no need for ligature characters for ff, fi, fl, ffi and ffl. The hook at the top of the “f” does not extend any further than the bar, and that is the design feature that the f-ligatures were designed to deal with. So no f-ligatures. To me, as a typographer, that is not a great loss, because I often track type to set it more tightly than normal. Because ligatures are a fixed character, tracking doesn’t alter the spacing between the various parts of the ligature. So when I tighten the tracking on a block of type, the ligatures suddenly look too loose and ruin the typographic color of a paragraph. No ligatures means I won’t have that problem.
Commercial-at sign: I received feedback from more than one source asking for a more conventional “@” sign. The usual design of the “@” sign is a lowercase “a” with a tail that whips and circles around the rest of the “a” in a counter-clockwise direction. The original “@” that I designed for Jetsonville had the tail whipping around in a clockwise direction, which I liked because it was unconventional. But, based on feedback, the tail of the “a” now whips around in the conventional counter-clockwise direction. The “a” that is part of the “@” sign is now also not the same as the rest of the “a”-based characters in the font—another change that I hope will make this new “@” more conventional, while still being distinctive.
Punctuation: I received feedback that the period, and all the other punctuation characters with dots, were too big. The only dots that weren’t too big were the dots over the “i” and “I”. So I made all the punctuation with dots the same size as the dots over the “i” characters. I think the new-size punctuation does look more comfortable and less attention-getting, so that was good feedback to get. I also, based on feedback I received, added a bit of space between the two dots on the open and close quote marks.
Lowercase “j”: One user asked if I could try a version of the lowercase “j” with the same hooked tail as the lowercase “g” and “y”. So I tried it. I didn’t like it. Part of what I like about the “i” and “j” pair in Jetsonville is that they look like siblings. With the hook on the “j”, that sibling relationship was lost. Originally I made the “i” and “j” similar as an homage to Futura, where the “j” also does not have a hook. So, for now, the “j” will stay as it was.
These character changes based on feedback will require me to regenerate the motion graphic I posted last week, because I don’t want the motion graphic showing outdated characters. But that’s a project for next week.
Other projects for next week: Keep working on the webpage, finishing it if possible; and, now that the font is pretty much done, work on the type specimen images.
