Another modular concept!

My idea was to create letters that could be rotated 90° to create other letters, for example C > U > N > D and B > M > E > W.

block font sketch 1

Meantime, in making my Japanese/Chinese comic lettering font for Comicraft, I learned that Kanji are constructed by combining several words into a single character.

For example, the box shape below top left is “mouth”, and top right, mouth+dog = “bark”.

The process:

block font process 1
1. constructed the alphabet ultrabold style.
block font process 2
2. I liked the letters, but realized it was going to be really tough to make them half as tall or half as wide while maintaining the thickness.
block font process 3
3. So I skinnified them. That’s a technical term.
block font process 4
4. Some wonky spots, but not bad!
block font process 5
5. I then designed a halfwidth & halfheight version of each letter
block font process 6
6. Completed with stacked & adjacent letter combos, a la Kanji.

I see some interesting possibilities happening, but it will probably take a lot more trial and error to become something that really works and is readable.

Download:

Swell Type Beta Five
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The uppercase has the interlocking pairs but lowercase doesn’t, so you can take your pick. And I included the initial Heavy weight too, because it wasn’t bad.

Enjoy, and let me know what you think…