Abandoned but Important

Another of Rue. If I don't post it, I will forget all about it.

Chinese Italic

**GASP** A sighting on Chinese Italic. Rare find I supposed though I am not sure if I would like to see more of it. It's not something I ever thought about until now... then I start wondering does it make sense to have a chinese italic?!?! does it?! or even an arabic italic?

CY: seems like most non-latin scripts don't look good italicised?

HHM: my friend terence yeung said he's going to name his first son Italicised.

WT: (@CY) i never really thought about it until i actually saw it on 早安您好 (or 早安您好), it was most peculiar in the most unflattering way. (@HHM): i guess terence yeung is just plain weird lor, an 'italicised' baby does not come across as a pretty sight.... asymmetrical, lope-sided, stressed... :S

HHM: lol! i've never thot of it that way! imo an italicised child would prob be a very picky eater and socially awkward.. btw, i don't think chinese italic makes sense!

FH: if you think about it, the use of italics is to alter the tone of a statement & alter the syntax by creating emphasis on the italicised word when reading... so in mandarin if you alter the tone using italics, would it not become a different hanyu pinyin accent? therefore you might even inadvertently change the meaning of the italicised word? (actually that could be quite interesting!)

WT: ya fab, i realised that chinese language do not offer a formal treatment for an italic-equivalent emphasis... or am i ignorant of it? :s
in chinese, each character is a sound. If the sound is altered, it just ain't that character anymore.
whereas in the case of an english word, it's a composition of sounds. so a slightly altered tone of a word is still recognisable... since it's that identifiable composition of sounds.
with this, whether in syntax or in form, maybe italic is just not an option for chinese at all?

FB: Slanted Arabic could work for certain styles, if used properly and if it is slanted to the left, it doesn't look bad. I saw many samples in logotypes or product brands but usually based on very geometric fonts. Slanted calligraphic fonts look baaaaad. Chinese and Japanese glyphs looks ugly when slanted but as I cannot read them, it is just an opinion of a designer. There is an long ongoing discussion about emphasising in Arabic text among experts and most of them recommends style mixing.

WT: Thx filip for the insight on Arabic :) As it is for both readers and non-readers of chinese, thumbs down to the italic equivalent! :)

On hindsight, this is really more an oblique than an italic anyway.

Rare Find

Rarely do I find anything that excites me in Singapore. Such a rare find at a Bukit Panjang Rd bus-stop.

Dr Seuss

This is a real person (<--famous type designer) and I find him incredibly creepy. Reminds me of Dr Seuss - The Cat in the Hat which also give me the creeps.

Designer vs Client

Specimen from TypeTogether.com

A package arrived in the mail today and Rue ornament is on the cover of TypeTogether's font catalogue 2009. It's a thrill to see how Rue is being applied.

The content page of featured fonts and respective designers.

A double-page spread.

I know I am anal and probably more so than ever as I stare at this page. Other than the fact that the italics are not printed in its final form (simply because it's not done yet), I can't help but feel Rue is not 'used correctly'. It's like losing sleep when I sold my first painting. Geez, I need to learn that they don't belong to me anymore...

The modified italic below compared with the above ex-italic.

Weedout

Potential client (from hell) asking for freelance service via email:

"...best if they are fresh grads who are super nerdy with an overpowering passion!! haha.."

First of all, I do appreciate honest people. But as I am not even a friend, I am not sure if you should share such explicitly implicit sentiment with me.

Secondly, I neither practice nor advocate cheap design service.

Prahaha

Prahaha - 'Me and other Animals in Prague' is my 1st typeface created for a self-initiated fanzine in my first semester at VSUP. My baby steps in the making of Prahaha was taken with František Štorm. He was as kind as he is but it just does not make my process any less stressful, not to mention the culture-shock I was experiencing in Prague. On hindsight, Prahaha is a highly-strung face that hides behind a cloak of false composure.

As it is my first typeface, there is only consideration for the english language with basic punctuation marks.

No specimen can be more simple than this. 150x210(mm), 8pp offset print.

Obviously a display face.

Postcard 110x280(mm).

Preliminary drawings.

Final poster approx 1.5m tall.

The fanzine was an exercise to put the typeface in use.

The animals.

Another issue of the same theme with a variant style.

All 3 fanzines in long-format accordion view.

Quandary

Quandary is my 2nd typeface created for a horror theme in use with an illustrated book - 'The Predicament' by Edgar Allan Poe. It is intended as a highly expressive face to accentuate a sense of mystery and macabre. The single-weight uni-case font is developed from the numeric glyphs found on the astronomical clock-face in Prague's Old Town Square.

Fairly strange but still legible.

The astronomical clockface at Staroměstská Old Town Square.

The final book with exclusive typeface, illustration and binding.

Inside pages with more Quandary.

And illustration.

Prahaha is used as the bodycopy.

Open spine binding. 110x280(mm), 30pp, 60 copies. Offset printing at VSUP.