The General Purpose Lettering Thread
… that my workload has subsided to the point where I can maintain something resembling a respectable blogging schedule?*
Ironically, today's post has very little to do with lettering, but is possibly of interest … a process post on 'restoring' the classic 1970s British strip, Hook Jaw!
Read it here: http://clintflickerlettering.blogspot.com/
Cheers!
Jim
*4100 pages lettered in 2011, folks. That's a standard-length US book every two days for the whole year!
Comments
Hey, @JimCampbell, question for you: What are your thoughts on font size in comics? As a guy with not-great vision, I'm increasingly frustrated by the dwindling size of mainstream comics lettering (let's not even get started on other periodicals), so when I letter my comics, I try to accommodate for people like me, and tend to go a bit larger (9 to 10 point). I guess you'll say it comes down to what works for the project/personal preference, but I'm curious if you had any input...
Can there be a one-size-fits-all number? I use anywhere from 5pt to 7pt depending on the font and page size. and 7pt seems huge. But PJ mentioned using 9-10pt... When I try a new font I print the pages at actual size to see what works.
Great discussion! I'm using a font that's tall and slender for this current project, and because of that, there's already a tendency (as demonstrated in @JimCampbell's great visual example) for the characters to look "larger" than other typefaces at the same pica, even though they're not. But I fiddled with the size and leading last night, and think I found a good comfort zone between "small enough to be unobtrusive" and "large enough for old man Peej to read."
The biggest issue for me is if I'm doing something that is meant to be consumed both digitally and physically. There aren't a lot of fonts that look OK at the same size in both. Digital usually needs a higher pt to be easily readable and that really gets tough when it's the dialog is really extensive or the art is really dense.