More Alphabets

I can’t promise that this will be my last post about playing with Crouwel’s New Alphabet, but atleast it’s a step towards that. I obviously I have been playing with his designs for a few days now, and I’ve been thinking about what makes them work, what makes them legible, and what makes them illegible. There is also a clear concept and structure behind each letterform. They were designed to work very well within a dot matrix system, so 90 and 45 degree angles are key for every piece of the typeface design. This enables each letterform to work at any size and not lose it’s shape. This is something I’ve been trying to stick to when recreating and exploring these designs.

With that said, I’ve decided the next step is to create a more legible font out of New Alphabet. When I say that I mean use these same principles to create a font that more closely resembles the latin alphabet that we all use everyday. From that I’ve reached the Pentagrid Alphabet. Based on a 5×5 grid with ascenders and descenders, this what I’ve arrived at.

Pentagrid Alphabet