The Story of FF Meta Serif

A conversation between designers reveals their creation process.

September 2006

Erik

I noticed that all the lowercase s’s looked pretty monoline. In the original Meta, they are much heavier in the center stroke, while the two end strokes are lighter. In the regular version the s now looks way too light, and it just occurred to me that this was why. Do check those characters against the original, even the condensed.

Christian

The original S and s always struck me as being much too heavy in the middle (and I corrected this in FF Unit), but the end strokes could stand to lose a bit of weight. See what you think of this clunkier, more interesting version of the Light weights and the resulting interpolations.

Erik

Yes, the Light is much better, and especially the Light Compressed. That should do it, with extra attention to the s. Yes, the middle may have been too heavy on some, but that was part of Meta’s charm: those little idiosyncracies or inconsistencies. A bit of it needs to remain.

Christian

You’re right. We threw too much bleach on it. Take a look at these new S’s and s’s. Better?

September 23, 2006

Christian

I’ve finally found a brilliant young designer to work with – the incredibly talented Kris Sowersby in New Zealand – and we spent a bit of time throwing ideas back and forth for FF Meta Serif over the last few days. His take is more of a Slab, and is pretty literal. Basically, it’s Meta with serifs tacked on, but I think the form of the serifs is nicely nuanced (they’re ever so slightly trapezoidal), and he’s found some smart ways to keep the curved strokes and angled terminals intact.

Christian

My sketch is more of a departure, and takes it firmly into Antiqua territory. I added quite a bit of contrast (and should probably tone it back down, at least in the Normal) and the serifs are bracketed. I also widened the overall proportion a bit, so the rounds fit in better with the visually wider seriffed characters. I tried to keep as many of the salient features intact as I could, but it’s a definite departure from Meta. That may not be a bad thing, though, because I do think they look good together, and a real Antiqua would probably have a longer shelf life. Besides the contrast, I haven’t settled on a shape for the ball terminals yet – see what you think of the various options.

The slab is closer to what you and I had dicussed in the past, but my grand plan (and the underlying reason why I think Meta Serif should be an Antiqua) is to draw Unit Serif as well, and let that one be a real Egyptian. Its forms are simpler and stiffer anyway, and we’ve already got the serif weight and shape figured out on I, i and j. In the end, I think we’d end up with a serif and slab that could be used together, and they’d be compatible with both FF Meta and FF Unit.

January 24, 2007

Christian

I’ve just delivered a large (and nearly impossible) family of newspaper fonts and have turned my attention back to Meta Antiqua. Here is a font to play with, and a PDF. I’ve got all of the necessary characters in there for setting English and German, plus figures, although the punctuation is all still left over from the original.

There are some minor weight problems (M and w, most glaringly), and the overall spacing may be a bit too tight, but I think the face is on the right track – it has the warmth and seriousness of the Economist text face, so it will work for magazines, and the sturdiness of a good news face. Most importantly, it feels like Meta to me and mixes well with the Bold. I’ll be interested to see what you think.

January 25, 2007

Christian

It feels like Meta to me.

Erik

It does, but still looks a little too big at the same size. The counters are bigger, so it appears that way. We need similar x-height in order to mix them.

Christian

I’ll play with that tonight. The ascenders and descenders match Meta, so they can’t really change – or should I try that too?

Erik

Perhaps we need to make it a little more condensed to get it a little darker?

Christian

I’m concerned that if we go much narrower, it isn’t going to have a good proportion for text – Wired just started using a newspaper text face which is a bit narrower than this and doesn’t end up looking very comfortable on a magazine page, at least for my taste.

Erik

Let’s reduce x-height then.

January 27, 2007

Christian

Are we getting there?

Erik

We are. You’re right – can’t really condense it too much. In your sample settings, the +4 version does look good. The expanded track should be our zero, so it’ll work between 8 and 10pt.

Christian

That was my plan.

Erik

There may be a little too much noise in the some of the caps, but I’ll go through them once I get to Berlin and print out the character set.

Christian

I’ve been having a hard time with striking the right balance between making the caps look like Meta and making them work together, particularly in all caps. I think we may have to abandon the diagonal cuts on E F T etc., or at least angle them out instead of in. There are a couple of alternatives at the end of the vfb document, marked in blue.

Erik

Should we just release the Regular and Bold with italics, small caps and tabular figures?

Christian

Yeah, I think so. Maybe with a Medium or Semibold for captions, sidebars, subheads – European newspapers always want this weight, and magazine designers can use it for text that reverses out of a picture. And the Medium or Semibold will be really easy to make – I’ve just set Kris up with Erik van Blokland’s Superpolator, which even interpolates the kerning. How important do you think it will be to match the weights of Serif to the Sans? I’m concerned that the Bold will look a little anemic if we match the main stroke weights to the sans, because of the additional contrast. I think I’ll have Kris work out the Black in the testword only, so we’ll have a little extra wiggle room to figure out the weight.

Erik

That’ll make a workable family without having to go through all the weights. I can imagine then making a slightly heavier version for glossy paper and very small sizes or bad newsprint, but once we get to the black weight or lighter once, only making those for display, even a little narrower.

Christian

Yeah, that’s a good idea. We can do a whole Headline family sometime in the future, with slightly narrower proportions and a little bit more contrast.

Erik

As a text face, it is supposed to go with Meta for captions and stuff, so together the family could provide everything needed for a magazine or even newspaper. Perhaps FontShop should make a combined package with Sans and Serif.

Christian

Or a couple of packages? One for newspapers, one for magazines. By the way, I just got a copy of a Swedish language paper from Turku, Finland called Åbo Underrättelser that uses FF Meta Headline pretty nicely. It sets nice and tight.

January 27, 2007

Erik

We need all the figures and ligatures, so we can make OpenType.

Christian

Yes, no problem. Kris seems to enjoy drawing silly ligatures. His Feijoa family gives Mrs Eaves a run for its money.

Erik

And I’ll have to think about a specific magazine set of dingbats, bullets, arrows and stuff.

Christian

We should also make sure we have some 5-pointed stars, cap-height boxes and bullets, and some simple triangular arrows pointing in all four directions, for newspaper customers. I’m pretty excited about how this family is coming together. I think it transcends being just a companion serif face for FF Meta.

February 9, 2007

Christian

I’ve finally gotten around to implementing your last round of requests. I’m skeptical of the serifless crossbars on E and F – it feels a little gimmicky to me, although it could work well in heavier weights. I prefer them with a little bit of taper – see what you think. The 2 and 3 are much better without serifs on top, and I’ve drawn two simplified ß’s. The more simplified one is probably best.

March 9, 2007

Christian

Kris and I have been plugging away at Meta Serif. We’ve passed the Italic back and forth a few times and we’re both pretty happy with it now. Kris prefers the spurred bowls on a, b and q, but I could go either way with them. I really prefer the 2-story g. I know it brings it away from the original, but I think it helps to make it look more like a real serif italic with a strong base in tradition. We tried not to get too clever with characters like k and z, but had a bit of fun with v, w and y, trying to get a hint of the original’s angled terminals worked in. Please don’t look too closely at the Italic caps – they’re uncorrected obliques. On the last two pages, you can see Kris’s first sketches for the additional weights. I had him draw the Black, for interpolation and to see if it might work as a headline style, and I find it pretty convincing. It needs some work, but I think it’s worth pursuing. The Bold and Medium may be a bit too light, especially the Medium, but Superpolator makes it incredibly easy to play around with the weights.

March 10, 2007

Erik

The Italic looks pretty good. There are a few letters that don’t seem quite ready (t for example).

Christian

Yeah, it needs less angle on the top bit. It looks a little strange.

Erik

But I like the wild v w y. The ß in the Roman still has the spur on it that I thought we lost.

Christian

The inner serif, or at the x-height on the left side? What do you think of spurs vs. no spurs on a b q? And 1-story vs 2-story g?

Erik

I am surprised at how good the weights look. I thought we might just publish a Bold, but this seems worth doing if we can get it done soon. The Medium is okay as an alternative for reversing-out or very small sizes; it doesn’t really have to be there for emphasis.

Christian

I’d like to make it just a tiny bit heavier, so it could work as a headline face, too.

Erik

Would you also do the Italics for all the weights?

Christian

Yes, of course. Kris is very fast, and Superpolator helps a lot. Now that I’m done with these two big magazine projects (I’ve delivered over 60 fonts to various clients since the beginning of the year), I’ll be able to respond with comments for him a lot faster than I was.

Erik

Seems like a lot of work, but if we have to do a Bold Italic anyway, you might as well do the interpolation. FF Meta Serif is shouting to have a Condensed companion already!

Christian

Let’s get the basic family out first! I have a method for getting a quick & rough Condensed by squeezing it and interpolating different x and y values. Maybe I’ll play with this while Kris finishes the complete character sets of what we have so far.

Erik

So we’ll have Book, Medium, Bold and Black, plus their Italics and Small Caps. Oldstyle figures, lining figures and tabular figures. A full OpenType family, except Greek and Cyrillic which would take it to OpenType Pro. But that’s work for the winter.

May 14, 2007

Christian

Things are moving along nicely with Meta Antiqua. The Book is just about finished (all characters are drawn and accented characters are built, and I send comments on all of this stuff yesterday. The uncorrected proof is included.), and the other poles are in really good shape, missing only accented chars and needing a little more polishing. Kris sent his first attempt at interpolating the Medium and Bold last night, and I wanted to get your thoughts on the basic weights. The Bold is pretty heavy, but I think it works really well for emphasis and will even hold up on newsprint. Do you agree? It’s a little hard to tell from unhinted outlines. I’ll send a corrected font as soon as I get one back from Kris, so you can show the face off at Typo.

6. July 2007

Christian

Here are all four of the romans, plus the Book Italic. Everything is drawn and corrected, most OT features are in place, and the only thing still missing is kerning. The features cover ligatures, small caps, lining and oldstyle figures in proportional and tabular variants, and alternates (ss01 is the lowercase g in the italic; ss02 is the alternate E and F in all styles, including accented and small caps versions). We’re finishing the Black Italic over the weekend, and I should have the rest of the italics for you early next week. I’m really, really happy with how the family is coming along. I hope you agree.

11. July 2007

Christian

Here’s the full Meta Antiqua family. I made a few revisions in the romans, so please replace the set I sent last week with these new fonts.