Kyle S//Anatomy of Type(s)

The two fonts I chose to use are not variations from the same family, but both stood out to me for the generous roundness used in certain aspects of the letterform.

The serif typeface I chose, Barkentina, stood out to me at first because of how old-timey it felt. When I see it, I imagine Raggedy Ann sitting in front of a fireplace knitting something or working on a patchwork quilt. I think there used to be a magazine about weird cracker barrel home decor and if I could find a copy online, I would certainly compare this font to the fonts used within it. I might have to timetravel back to the early nineties to get the issues that really show the vibes I'm talking about, but oh well. Barkentina's strokes do not always meet where other fonts may, with obvious examples being in the unclosed bell of the uppercase P, or in the crossbar under the eye of a lowercase e. There are also a lot of bonus fillets to be found and mistaken for serifs, as with on the lowercase y specifically, on which I am still not certain which is which. Experimenting with Barkentina in different sizes, with different thickness of stroke, and with different kerning shows a clear, and stable font that seems appropriate for many basic uses. I would not choose it for the majority of text in my novel, due to the ink wastage from all those fillets.

The san serif font I found, on the other hand, is the sort of thing I can see myself overusing. I actually sort of see a bit of helvetica when I look at it for too long, which makes me think that it should be appropriate for basically everything! Harabara is another font I would characterize as round-y, because there is a lack of fillets/tails/ears adorning the edges of the letters. Because some expected serifs are missing, there may be some legibility issues if part of a letter is covered (something I would have only picked up on after reading chapter 4!). I generally focused on the things that WEREN'T present in the Harabara font, until I noticed a little extra piece on top of the lowercase x: an extra little ascender on the right side. This minute detail really made me respect the design choice more because it does contribute to the balance of the font, which at first glance seems balanced enough.

Out of the two, my favorite for now is Harabara, because I feel it could lend itself to fit into more varied concepts than Barkentina. Also, less is more.