11 finí Is Wrong
With These lof/os?

(Answers on opposite page)

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LOGO, FONT a LETTERING BIBLE

1 1

are useless afterwards. So I suggest that
you read this book in bed, to absorb the
strategies and concepts, rather than
reading it at a computer, slavishly follow¬
ing the instructions step-by-step.

Drawing letters and fonts in Adobe
Illustrator and Macromedia Fontog¬
rapher is the heart of this book, and it is
assumed the reader already has a mid¬
dling knowledge of these programs.
Refresher sections, covering some perti¬
nent aspects, have been provided to make
the techniques demonstrated here more
comprehensible and to help you catch up
if you lied on your résumé and don't real¬
ly know the programs.

In addition to discussing correct letter
forms, this book will attempt to teach
strategies for drawing letters with rapidi¬
ty, efficiency and consistency (you'll read
the word consistency many times before
we're done). In Illustrator there are more
ways to approach almost every drawing
problem than there are ways to skin a cat
(and they are more humane and far less
disgusting). By approaching one prob¬
lem—such as how to make a block drop
shadow (see "Incredible Type Trix," page
166)—from several angles, I demonstrate
various strategies as well as help you to
retain the lessons through repeating key
procedures.

Your particular version of Illustrator is
not too important since the basic func¬
tions used are so intrinsic to the program
that they have not been (and probably
will not be) radically changed between
older and yet-to-come versions. I was sur¬
prised to discover how many of my illus¬
trious contributors are still using Illus¬
trator 6.0 or 8.0, which just goes to show
that most of the features developers add
to new program versions are gimmicks

Answers to Vf HKf IS WRONG WITH THESE LOGOS?

(Don't cheat. First, write down your own thoughts,
then compare them to my answers below. All these
examples were created by the author so as not to
get sued by anybody.)

SUGARPLUM SCENTS: The designer has
gone crazy with swash and "expert" characters
that are best used judiciously. Overuse of special
characters has caused legibility problems and also
some difficulties with color massing and spacing.
This logo was a perfect opportunity for hand-let¬
tering. Then each letter might have been better
fitted to the others, but the designer, lacking man¬
ual skills and a knowledge of bezier curves, was
limited to the fonts in his library.

ACTION PLUMBING: Aside from being
bland—a very boring font was used—the ¡con not
only doesn't tickle or intrigue or inform, but it tells
us nothing about the nature of the company. The
inner and outer rounded-corner boxes surround¬
ing the ¡con have different corner radii, which real¬
ly looks awful. The one-point stroke underline per¬
haps serves to unify the type and icon, but its light
weight is incongruous with the heavy title font.

PAINLESS: This logo is painful because it
appears to be comprised of several fonts, though
probably only one free web font was used. The
interesting and distinctive flaring hood of lower¬
case a—my favorite letter of the motley batch-
is not followed through on the e or P. The concave
base of / is another distinctive feature not applied
to the other letters. The circular counter in e is dif¬
ferent from the ones in P and a. Worst of all, the
two letters s have serifs, yet none of the other let¬
ters do. In hand-lettering, you'd never have two of
the same letter next to each other with the iden¬
tical shape; you'd always enlarge or somehow
tweak one of them. I'm aware that the designer's
intent was to create something bouncy and fun,
yet this is a prime example of a complete lack of

consistency that often marks amateur work.

ARGENTA: The apparent intent of this lettering
style was to make a classic, bottom-weighted cola
script, which originally would have been the prod¬
uct of a lettering brush. Yet no single brush formed
such letters. They are the result of a pencil
attempting to draw this script in outline without
the faintest idea how a real brush, held at a con¬
sistent angle, would have distributed the thicks
and thins in a natural manner. Specifically, the
weight of the top flourish on cap A doesn't match
the rest, and it curves in a clumsy, inorganic way.
The descender loop of g isn't bottom-weighted to
match the rest of the style, and the connecting
stroke creates too large a gap between it and the
next letter. The e is top-weighted as well as bot¬
tom-weighted and is placed too close to n, whose
curving right stem is awkwardly drawn. The stem
of filares wide toward the top, which breaks style
and it is angled more than the rest of the letters.
The bowl of a is not bottom-weighted like the
other letters, and its right stem tapers toward the
top. (See also page 118.)

TECKNOR: The outline and drop shadow
obscure a multitude of sins, but fail to mitigate the
myriad mistakes of this logo. Basically, everything
is wrong with it. Almost every stem is a different
width and angle than the others. If it's a
monoweight style, why do some stems taper or
flair? The angles of corners and stroke terminals
vary widely. Letter spacing is bad, and the widths
of individual letters have not been considered.
There is no follow-through in the stem of if or the
leg of li. See how they begin one width and end up
another? Tecknor is what happens when you draw
a logo straight ahead instead of building each let¬
ter from standard parts.

These are examples of the ways in which profes¬
sionals scrutinize their work.