In 2008 the London-based foundry Fontsmith asked for my help in the revision of an existing font. The Al-Jazeera Children channel had approached Fontsmith to resolve a series of technical issues with an existing font they television company used. They provided a list of perceived shortcomings and requested to have them fixed. Fontsmith referred their brief to me, and in my analysis I identified additional issues and proposed an integral solution to the client.

In addition to solving technical errors, I proposed a redesign of the entire typeface. The improvements were concerned with design consistency, curve quality, improvements of letter architecture, OpenType programming, the disambiguation of similar lettershapes and the extension of the glyphset to cover additional signs in the same style. The samples in grey show the font provided by the client, the black samples the final Fontsmith design.

The client who had initially only asked for a solution to the technical issues was so satisfied by the result and the changes proposed that he ordered an additional weight of the font. As of 2014, I am pleased to note that the typeface is still in use and that it was chosen to replace JCCs old word-mark, a clear indication of the client’s satisfaction.

 

This project is copyright of Fontsmith and Al-Jazeera.