Table of Contents 1 Concept....................2 2 Research.................4 3 Troubleshooting......6 4 Showcase...............20
Concept
When deciding on my choice of concept for my typeface, I wanted to find an example of something that I enjoyed that I felt I could improve. When searching for this goal, the thought occurred to me of the History of Middle-Earth books. These were books I loved, that provided intricate detail to the world I had come to love throughout Tolkien’s books. However, the choice of cover design, and especially the choice of typeface, left much to be desired. The typeface was a generic fantasy style, and did little to draw the viewer’s attention to the book. On top of this, while there was a general style to the series, much
of the design changes around from book to book (e.g. the color scheme of the letters, and the placement of the title) that it separates the books rather than making them a cohesive whole. This paired with the drop shadow and emboss on some of the letters led to a very unattractive book. In fact, by combining this poor choice of typeface with a poor color scheme, some of the books are almost painful to the viewer. Not only that, but the generic nature of the typeface left much to be desired in terms of a connection to the content of the books. So, I decided to create a typeface that fixed some of the design
problems of the cover, and maintained a connection to the source material of the books by emulating the style of one of the languages that Tolkien was so famous for creating. The goal for this new typeface would be to capture the general fantasy aesthetic of the original covers, while improving on it by directly emulating the style of a language spoken in the books. And then this new typeface would be used to create a more cohesive and minimalistic design for the covers, which still showed off the artwork on the original covers by John Howe, which is obscured in the original designs.
Research
Tengwar The first step to creating this typeface was selecting the proper language that would easily lend itself to a readable typeface. Some languages, like Sindarin, were not chosen because they were too elaborate and difficult to read. Others, like Khuzdul, were too rough, and were not what I was looking for. Eventually, I settled on regularTengwar, as it was a nice balance of simplistic design, and handwritten feel. A few significant changes were made to simplify the design of the letters, but the final look carries on the original spirit of Tengwar.
Sindarin
Khuzdul
Valmaric Script
Pointed Tengwar
5
Troubleshooting
To form the majority of the letters, four basic parts were used, based on their shapes in Tengwar. Firstly, a tall ascender, used in the likes of b, d, and other letters. The shorter ascender was used for letters such as a, i, or t. The descender shape was used for letters like p and q. The final shape, the basic loop, was used to form the majority of circular shapes throughout the typeface, such as in a, b, d, b, p, q, and many others. All other letters in the typeface used these four shapes, or permutations of those shapes, to form their shapes. Because of this, when a single shape of the core four shapes changed the entirety of the typeface.
7
Letterforms
Making the letters On the left are the full range of parts used across the typeface. All additional shapes were created using the original four shapes as a basis Each shape was made to match up to the others so that the typeface as a whole would fit together. Below are examples of how a letter would be made from the base shapes. Each letter would only use about two or three pieces to make the letter, or one shape in the case of letters like l.
Process
This page shows the progress from first sketch of the letter a, to final sketch before moving to digital and final versions. These sketches vary widely, as a direction hadn’t been found overall for the typeface yet. However, the third sketch does indicate a move towards the final form of the a.
This page shows the final three stages of the a. The first a was the first attempt digitally for the a, taken from a quick pen trace from a phone picture. The second is the final physical drawing taken from the vellum, and the third is the final digital version. Note the changes between the final drawing and the final digital, due to developing a final system for the typeface.
Majuscules
Miniscules
Numerals and Punctuation
Showcase
Resources -http://media0.7x.cz/images/media0:50ff0dd48dca5.jpg/whitetow.jpg -https://elmordyn.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/tolkien-by-diterlizzi.jpg -http://fantasy.mrugala.net/John%20Howe/John%20Howe%20-%20 Sauron.jpg -http://www.john-howe.com/portfolio/gallery/data/media/55/LostRoad-cover-port.jpg -https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71l-z%2BLa9qL.jpg -https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/4e/12/09/4e1209d36ad8fe1d3d302dc570a9d4dd.jpg -http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/91LCXDXwlhL.jpg