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Hi, I want to post some of my fonts I'm going to use for my next release of Smile. I'd like opinions about what and where improve them.

Nice looking, unique font. I haven't much advice save that if that's not just a screen dump/mockup, I recommend adding w
to the typefaces lacking it for interoperability. I'm sure you already thought of that, though, and that's a personal choice.

inx wrote:I recommend adding w to the typefaces lacking it for interoperability. I'm sure you already thought of that, though, and that's a personal choice.

He is also missing the J in his fonts at the top. In terms of fixing the look of your fonts, I think the small "a" looks a little too much like a small "q" for my taste, so you might want to consider cleaning that up a bit. Other than those missing letters and the q-ish looking a I mentioned, it all looks pretty good.

No screen dump, and to prove my sincerity this was the less compact version
It's right, I have forgotten them, I have to add the two chars! Thank you for the report
I'll remove a pixel on the "leg" of a, so it will be less similar with a q

One more suggestion: The leg of the f character should not extend downward like the j, g, p, q, or y does. You might want to shift those pixels up a few units.

montrom wrote:One more suggestion: The leg of the f character should not extend downward like the j, g, p, q, or y does. You might want to shift those pixels up a few units.

Yup, I confirm that it's a bad idea. People first identify words by how they globally look, and the "f" character is first analyzed by the brain used to most fonts as something that goes upwards ^^

The idea of a good typesetting is to have a visually obvious distinction between various letters, like c vs e, u vs v, m vs r, i versus l (and especially I vs l). I suggest you compare the differences in like the standard vga and compare that to yours, there's a lot of pixel-differences that can easily be missed.

Also, especially in the small font, some characters are reduced to pixel noise.

montrom wrote:One more suggestion: The leg of the f character should not extend downward like the j, g, p, q, or y does. You might want to shift those pixels up a few units.

I know I don't have seen it first because I write f in this way I'll change it

Combuster wrote:The idea of a good typesetting is to have a visually obvious distinction between various letters, like c vs e, u vs v, m vs r, i versus l (and especially I vs l). I suggest you compare the differences in like the standard vga and compare that to yours, there's a lot of pixel-differences that can easily be missed.

Also, especially in the small font, some characters are reduced to pixel noise.

I know but the solution is to lose the "style" of the characters. I will however try to solve this problem ^_^

I attach here my favorite "font" and a sort of logo drown in the same way

Actually, I changed my mind about the F. Keep it like that, it will identify your OS, because it is unique. If you write your F's like that, then let it show in your work. I thought you just made a mistake, but if that's how you write the F, then keep it that way. But, still change the a.

Nice work. For the interested, I posted a ZIP including a bitmap and a raw version of the Bochs console font here. See the topic for discussion of the license. AFAIK (and what was discussed in the thread), the Bochs license states that the text mode font is public domain, so knock yourself out.

@montrom : Permit me to disagree, because being different is not an excuse for reduced usability. Otherwise, Flash websites would rule the web ^^
I'd suggest keeping the font stylish, but taking the basic appearance of existing characters in most fonts into account. If you just make your f grow a little upwards, it'll be more readable without being less unique ^^

I thought so too, until he stated that he actually wrote his F's like that. To me, that is kind of like a signature. It defines himself in the program, it's a sign that he was there. And, I believe that if your work is your own, then it becomes who you are, mentally via design. And, this is a design issue, so I don't feel right trying to encourage him to be less like himself inside his own world.

I have a solution I will use my strange f -and other different chars- for titles, and a more traditional font -based on this- for text

This is a png with some chars added and other changed. I'm thinking about the pixels to edit to better define the similar chars.

Here is what I would try first. I would create a font at it's smallest size possible, and I would confirm that they work and are easily identifiable. I would do what you're doing, posting images and waiting for feedback. Then, I would attempt a crude code to scale it up and then back down, just to see how it looks, and if it looks fine, I'd perfect the code, and that's it.

If I wanted a bold font, I would simply print the character, then print it again with a one pixel shift to the right. There isn't a need to include a bold version of your font, I think.

If you were to keep with what you have, then I would focus on the smallest font size first. Fix that up and then apply those same changes to the bigger sizes, because it matters more how the smallest size will look.

Back to your 'a' character again. One suggestion may be to take off the bottom left corner pixel. I think that might help to better distinguish it from the 'o' character when it gets smaller. And, don't forget to chop off a little of it's leg while you're at it. And, I like the idea of keeping the crazy F for use in titles. That's a real good compromise.

Good luck, I'd like to see soon your result
I will post the complete chars map in a short time:)
However a simple window concept for the first release of my os (Yeah it's quite similar with win95, I know, but I'm designing a new one on paper )