I'm currently working on a Condensed weight of my font Outstanding.

I draw my font glyphs in bitmap, then edit the imported graphics. I made the source graphics for the condensed weight by shrinking the Regular weight horizontally to 80%, without changing the height. I then clean up the images in my font editor, (ScanFont 3).

Here is the X from the Regular weight, in Capitals and lower case small caps, and the equivalent glyph in caps for the Condensed weight:


The small caps X in the Regular weight is unmodified, other than to have the shadows removed.

So, I'm wondering what looks best from among my options for the small caps X in the Condensed weight. Because this weight has been artificially created with stretch/skew, it doesn't have to be faithful to an original design.

Here are my choices:



The first one is the same as the Capital, less the shadow.

In the second one, the serifs at lower left and upper right have been shortened.

In the third one, the serifs at upper left and lower right have been shortened, and the serif at upper right has been shortened further.

Which X do you like best, for the Condensed small caps?

Thanks,

~bobistheowl

I think I would prefer option 3, feels most like lower case. But then, only my feeling.

hmm... nb 3 too for the condensed small caps

same here

For me, it's the 1. Question of feeling. I prefere to have the same right limits for top and bottom with the serifs aligned at right.

Menhir got a point there.

Yeah, first i was going to say nb1 too, but the "condensed" feel is better on the last one.

The serifs in this design aren't meant to be aligned vertically on the right, nor the left. The ones on the bottom are supposed to be slightly wider than the ones on top.

My impression was that, in the third X, I may have made the upper left and right too small.

Here's a new graphic, with a fourth option, appended to the end:



It's very easy for me to make this kind of change. At this point, I like #4 best.

Thanks for the feedback so far.

~bito