The font of all magic

Getting excited for the book. I've had some very good advice from a friend and am rethinking the title. To try and keep me motivated I've also been working on some ideas for the cover.


developing motifs for the book

I wanted to a typeface that would be suitable for the book's subject - Celtic Magic.

Typography design takes lots of exploration. I spent a while exploring the form of Celtic runes and experimenting with creating a 'runic' sort of font. You want any book to have a memorable font. And, the greatest series, all have their own unique type-face that is identifiable at a glance. Think of Harry Potter, Marvel Comics and (I hate to say it) Twilight.

The thing about these fonts is they are all hand drawn which automatically makes them unique. It create something special when you know a font has been hand crafted specifically for that title.

The earliest version of the font

Early drafts came out looking a bit too literal. I've seen similar fonts and while stylistically their inspiration is very obvious, readability is poor. And, for any book, especially for young people, you want them to be able to read the title without any difficulty.

From these drafts I stripped back some of the 'rune' elements, primarily the unrelenting straight lines. Allowing the forms to curve made the text look less archaic. What came out I thought looked quite classy but was still a bit too modern.

Getting smoother

measuring out on graph paper

My first cover idea will feature Pictish filagree and figures as a frame. The letters need to stand out in an environment of intricate swoops and swirls without jarring against. So, while the sans-serif look is more true to the rune idea, it doesn't totally fit the aesthetic.

practice practice practice

I thought about different textures and how characters behave when writing on them. My first thought was of stone. The Pictish art that has survived the test of time is all stone carvings. I may still come back to the idea of stone in another cover draft. However, in this idea the illumination does all the heavy lifting and, after all, it is a book. I want it to have the feel of a modern illuminated manuscripts with distinctly Pictish flavour.

cover idea and lettering test

To achieve a more fluid looking font I broke out the old brush and ink set and practiced some Chinese calligraphy (of all things)! Chinese calligraphy dates back to 4000 BC and I thought adding some of the beauty and rigor of it to the very rigid font I designed would give it an edge of class and antiquity.

What it turned out was a more organic serif version of my initial ideas. While it's come a way from the blunt edged runes, the font maintains the odd runic proportions with sloped descenders and unique angles. I particularly like how the 45degree angles on the 'K' intersect with the vertical line in a way that cuts off part of the line thickness.

So, that's how I came to this cover idea's lettering. And you might have guessed the new title already! I'll do another post on how I came up with the new title later on and I'll post cover ideas as I start churning them out. The book is away to be proof read and I'm getting more feedback from a friend who's an editor. So, I'm fairly excited/nervous about this next phase of my publishing journey.

testing out the lettering

I know that these ideas might all totally change when I have an agent. But, it's nice to keep my creative juices occupied while I'm on the look for that agent who will help me get to the next level!

Keep growing and keep going!

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