Using Karen Chang’s Designing Type as a reference and guide, I designed my first typeface. This iterative process took place over twelve weeks. I worked in an order increasing in complexity, so that stylistic elements of the typeface could emerge organically.

I first established the control characters, O and H. I developed the remaining capital letterforms in the order of perpendiculars, obliques, and curves. Then, I worked on the lowercase letterforms, lining and oldstyle numerals, and punctuation. I brought the letterforms from Illustrator into Glyphs, and set the kerning and kerning pairs. From this point, I had a functional typeface.

I implemented minor revisions as inconsistencies were noticed in critique and while typesetting sample text. Unsurprisingly, the most difficult letter to get right was the “s”–it was refined until the very end.