I shared a couple of screenshots of small fixes with — or on-going experiments in — font design in another thread. I shared this work to make a point in my argument, but I was earnestly surprised with the feedback. Given the encouragement I’ve received, I’d like to share a work in progress of mine. The font is now nearly 50 glyphs old, and can already be used to engrave somewhat simple music — simple but absolutely remarkable:
I’m tentatively calling it Iris and so far it has no pretension but to emulate my handwriting — a combination of bolder glyphs drawn with a calligraphic pen and a round bold pen for most objects. There’s a lot in really working out a consistent design so as to precision-engineer beauty — see Abraham’s fonts or Robert Piechaud’s November — but I’m endlessly drawn to the handwritten, the quirky, the irregular.
I still have to fiddle around with the metadata. I’ve already bugged Daniel en passent about it, because I’m currently not able to correctly set anchors and bounding boxes, but I’ll try again soon.
It may well be that Dorico isn’t doing entirely the right thing with your metadata files. Feel free to email me the font, the metadata file, and a description of the problem, and I’ll take a look.
I have used notation software for years as a hobby but have little experience in using multiple music fonts. However, I love the look of the screenshots and the connection to the look of handwritten music. Good luck with your project!
I’ve implemented the numbers just today; they will certainly be tweaked when I return to this with fresh eyes. I must admit I find the time signature numbers rather lackluster myself, but, as I said, this emulates my own handwriting. If I end up using this, I might just use the classic, bold Bodoni numbers; many of the best hand-drawn scores employ tabular numbers by transference instead of handwritten as well — I’m thinking for example of 80’s Faber Music Jonathan Harvey works.
Still, to show off the numbers as both time signature and tuplet numbers, here’s an almost obligatory Ferneyhough test:
Finally tacked flags — or rather: finally settled on a design for the flags.
The one very briefly featured in the Ferneyhough example was very much a placeholder. Flags are quite boring in my own handwriting, to the point where most of the time I just draw them straight — especially since I’m most likely in a hurry to be writing music by hand. For the font, I tried picking up the calligraphy pen and drawing either more ornate or just thicker flags, but I wasn’t too happy with the result. Back on my main round bold pen, I just traced an outline of my hand movement to study the motion and then designed them with the ink’s behavior in mind. Overall, they came out less bold than I had first imagined them, but so far I’m pleased.
Each flag’s end is allowed to peek under the one above or below. I think it looks good at high point sizes, and it’ll most likely go away on its own on smaller sizes and in print — I’ll have to test. Negative space between flags is supposed to be tight, and another thing I’ll have to test on print is how staff lines cross it. As with other glyphs in the font, some curves might still get tweaked, but it’s ok for now.
And finally, holds and pauses have also been drawn, though they’re bound to get touched up. I’ll post them later, if there’s any interest, since the forum limits us to three attachments.
Your font has outstanding clarity. I didn’t think I would like a handwritten font so much.
I agree about time signatures, a traditional transference would make them stand out more.
My only question is the treble clef. It feels a bit too “exotic” for my taste. It’s consistent with other glyphs though.
Beautiful work!
Sure, all three major softwares allow you to resize the time signatures independently — as well as just plainly pulling them from a different font other than the default music font, which is why I feel confident in designing them in a way that’s consistent with the rest of the font. The end choice rests with the user.
