Olympic

Olympic

OlympicAn original typeface

designed by James Coker

©2012Anderson, SC

Published by James CokerOlympic created by James Coker

Table of Contents468

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Concept and Uses for OlympicFirst ThoughtsBase ShapeCharacter SetsNumerals and SymbolsMaiden Flight

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ConceptOlympic is based off of a combination of Kabel and Optima. Both of these typefaces are very complex on their own but I really felt that they complimented each other nicely and could work together. I went about deciding which elements of each face I wanted to use in Olympic and chose to utilize the angles that are found in Kabel and the curves from Optima. Also, the rounded elements in Kabel are based off of circles so the outside of each of the bowls in my characters are circles with a certain degree of weight change on the interior lines which makes the counter more ovoid.

Kabel+

Optima=

Olympic

Uses for OlympicFrom the beginning I thought that Olympic would be perfect for use by an airline and that idea began working even better for me when I learned that Kabel was actually designed for use by the travel industry.Once I pinned down where I was going to be using my typeface I began to think of airline names and, while the name Olympic didn’t come until later, I made the decision early on that the design was reminiscent of Greek architecture. It was then that the name Olympic came to me. It seemed to fit perfectly so that is now both the name of the fictitious airline and my typeface.

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Because Kabel and Optima are both sans-serif faces Olympic naturally turned out to be sans as well. That doesn’t mean that the option of it being a serif face wasn’t explored however. Actually, a few of the original drawings were interesting but the serifs were ultimately removed.

First Thoughts

First ThoughtsAfter the serif or sans decision was made I needed to decide how the letterforms would sit relative to the baseline. At first I was basing the bottoms of the letters off of Kabel. It’s very subtle but many of the characters are angled on the bottoms. On my typeface this made the letters appear too playful which in my case was not what I was wanting. I changed these characters to be flush with the baseline and it made a tremendous differencein all of the characters.

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Base ShapeStarting off I knew I needed one shape to unify the typeface and so that it would be known that each character is a member ofthe same face. At first that shape was going to be the circle from Kabel. I began looking through the characters to find something that would repeat in many characters. What I found wasthat the majuscule I was something I could go off of. This shape was even adapted tomake the majuscule A. The Awas in turn doubled to give me the majuscule M and it was flipped to give me the majuscule W as well as the majuscule V.

Base ShapeThe base shape actually went through several modifications before it became what it is now. At first it went below the baseline and the angle was very steep. I didn’t like how jagged it was making the letterforms look so I shortened the angle and that looked much better. At onepoint I even considered having the angle face the other waybut that didn’t even make it to the drawing board. Eventuallythe basic shape ended flushwith the baseline.

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Majuscules

Miniscules

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Numerals

Symbols

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Maiden Flight