When the Minnesota Orchestra came to our
high school to perform a concert in the
school’s gymnasium, I was the “type guy”
student who typeset the program booklet.
As you can see here, I used Futura.
A capstone project by Steve Lenius
as the final requirement for the
Master of Arts in Graphic and
Web Design (MAGWD) program at
Minneapolis College of Art & Design
(MCAD), Minneapolis, Minnesota
August 2020
BRIEF DESCRIPTION:
Jetsonville is a new
OpenType-format type font
inspired by “The Jetsons,” the
legendary 1962-63 animated
television series about
a nuclear family living
100 years in the future.
Ever heard of “fan fiction”?
Well, Jetsonville is a “fan font.”
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Does the world NEED
another type font?
NOPE.
Can the world USE
another type font?
ALWAYS!
Does the world currently have
a type font inspired by
“The Jetsons,”
the 1962 animated
television series?
NOT THAT I COULD FIND
IN MY RESEARCH.
HOW I AM SOLVING
THIS PROBLEM:
In support of the cause of
Better Living
Through Typography,
I am creating Jetsonville,
a type font inspired by
mid-century design.
FURTHER PROBLEM
STATEMENT
I am a Type Guy. I have been
working with type and fonts
since my high school years.
Typographically speaking, I know
what works and what does not.
When the Minnesota Orchestra came to our
high school to perform a concert in the
school’s gymnasium, I was the “type guy”
student who typeset the program booklet.
As you can see here, I used Futura.
But I have not yet designed a
typeface, nor have I ever used
font-design software. I am told
the learning curve is very high.
Font design in general is a
lengthy process that calls for
extended refinement of
the most minute details.
This capstone project
is ten weeks long.
Is that time enough to
successfully create a font?
Well, I decided to try.
INSPIRATION AND
RESEARCH
The design of Jetsonville draws
on mid-century modern art,
architecture and culture.
“THE JETSONS”
Jetsonville was inspired,
obviously, by “The Jetsons” . . .
especially the architecture of
their apartment building.
BUT WHAT INSPIRED
"THE JETSONS"?
MID-CENTURY
ARCHITECTURE
“The Jetsons” borrowed from
mid-century architectural styles:
The Space Needle in Seattle
(1961-62)
Marina City, Chicago
(1961-68)
Theme Building at
Los Angeles Airport
(1957-61)
Gateway Arch
in St. Louis (1963-65).
Even McDonald’s
“Golden Arches”
date from this time period.
MID-CENTURY CARS AND
“THE FORWARD LOOK”
Mid-century automobiles by Chrysler
Corporation featured styling promoted
as “The Forward Look,” symbolized
by this double-boomerang logo.
Look past the fins on the
1960 Plymouth and 1961 Dodge
and notice the parabolic roofline.
MID-CENTURY FURNITURE
AND CONSUMER GOODS
Consumer goods featured arches,
often in the form of boomerangs.
"Skylark" Formica countertops
featured a boomerang pattern.
Arches also appeared as
“hairpin legs,” designed to give
furniture a space-age feeling
of weightlessness.
THE GENESIS OF
JETSONVILLE
One project in this program’s
Design in Context class was to
take one of four typefaces and
modify it to create a new
typeface. I considered
altering Univers to make it
more futuristic:
Then I tried a
futuristic Baskerville:
But then I decided to create
a completely new font
based on the arches seen
in mid-century architecture
and on “The Jetsons.”
I started by drawing an arch-
shaped path in Adobe Illustrator,
and then stroked it with a
vertical oval brush to create
the primal Jetsonville arch.
This arch became the basis
for all the characters of
Jetsonville, starting with the
uppercase A.
The 26 Jetsonville uppercase
characters were designed during
the Design in Context class
using Adobe Illustrator.
CHOOSING THE TOOLS
For this capstone project I
decided to complete the font
with lowercase characters,
numbers, punctuation, and
other characters, and then
turn them all into a usable
OpenType-format font.
But what font development tool
should I use to do this?
Several were available:
• Fontographer: Once the
industry standard, but
long past its prime.
• Type Tool: Once a good simple
font tool, but now outdated.
• FontForge: Free and open-
source, but poor user interface.
• Fontlab: A newer industry
standard. Many capabilities
but complex to use.
• Glyphs: Rapidly becoming the
new industry standard.
Capable but complex.
• Glyphs Mini: A streamlined and
simpler version of Glyphs.
All of these programs have very
steep learning curves. Did I have
time to learn how to use them?
Not really.
My font-development tool choice:
FontSelf, a font-making plug-in
for Adobe Illustrator.
FONTSELF ADVANTAGES
• Does what I need it to do.
• Intuitive to use, so almost no learning curve
• Leverages my current knowledge of
Adobe Illustrator.
• Bonus: very inexpensive.
FORMULATING
MY PROCESS
• Draw characters in Illustrator
• Import characters into FontSelf
to create OpenType-format font
• Use FontSelf to adjust spacing
and kerning (automatically
or manually)
FONT DESIGN
BEST PRACTICES
• Goal: Even and uniform
typographic color.
• Characters should harmonize
with one another.
• When looking at a block of
type there should be no black
spots and no white holes or
white lines (“rivers”) running
through the type.
• To judge typographic color:
1) Squint, or 2) turn the type
upside down. Either technique
makes black spots, white holes
and rivers easier to see.
PROCESS:
What I am using and why
KNOWLEDGE OF:
• Mid-twentieth-century design
and culture to inspire the font
• Principles and best practices
of typography to guide the
creation of the font
TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGY
LIST: HARDWARE
• Pencil, pen and paper for initial
sketches and notes
• MacBook Pro with large
external display as computing
platform/design workstation
• Laser printer for proofing
font design
TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGY
LIST: SOFTWARE
ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR
• Primary tool for drawing
the characters
• Current industry standard for
vector-based drawing software
• I am already familiar with
using Illustrator
FONTSELF
• Illustrator extension to turn
character outlines into
OpenType font and then
refine the font
• Works seamlessly with
Adobe Illustrator
• Effective automated spacing
and kerning adjustments
ADOBE PHOTOSHOP,
INDESIGN, ACROBAT,
and AFTER EFFECTS
• Used to prototype font design
and to create both still and
moving type specimens
• Industry standards for
image editing, layout and
motion graphics
• Already familiar with their use
• BLOGGER web blogging
platform for documenting
project progress
• VISUAL CODE integrated
web-development environment
and HTML/CSS/Javascript
for constructing project’s
promotional web page
• GITHUB.COM for hosting
project’s web page
• Font-distribution platform
for hosting, promoting and
selling font (MyFonts.com
or a similar platform)
FEEDBACK
FEEDBACK SOURCES
• My subject matter expert and
mentor for this project is noted
Twin Cities-based font designer
and merchant Chank Diesel.
• I asked three other designers
to use-test the font and
offer feedback.
• I also received feedback from
other students in this program.
FEEDBACK RECEIVED
• No one had problems installing
or using the font.
• People generally liked the font.
• Characters people mentioned
they liked included m, n, h, O,
comma, and apostrophe.
• Certain letters, however, tended to
be singled out as problematic. Based
on the feedback I received, I altered
these characters.
• “a,” “f,” and ”@” received less
distinctive but more readable
characters.
• “e” was made slightly narrower.
• Based on feedback received,
punctuation dots were made smaller.
• Slightly more space was added
between the dots on double-dotted
punctuation.
Although subtle, these
suggested alterations made
a big improvement in the font.
(Thank you to Chank Diesel
and to my use testers!)
FEEDBACK FROM MIKE HAEG
(creative director, artist, UX/IA designer),
who was one of Jetsonville's test users:
“I felt like this is a great space-age font,
but it seems like there are hints of a deeper
history, almost Mesopotamic cuneiform
juxtaposed with a more distant,
human-as-alien future.
“Don't get me wrong. I think it has great
application as a retro-futurist/mid-century font.
I just felt like it actually has more uses than that,
which is kind of neat. I don't often see that
in this type of display font.”
“I can see this font being used to bridge the past
and the future—a hopeful nostalgia. Of course,
it would lend itself to drive-in movie theaters,
diners, and book design, but there is something
of a deeper past and more distant future (in time,
space, and even evolution). In this I think it is
strongest—humanity as a race that spans eons.”
PROJECT DELIVERABLES
PROJECT DELIVERABLES
SUMMARY
• Centerpiece of project:
Jetsonville, an OpenType font
• Type specimens (still images)
showing creative ways to use
the Jetsonville font
• Motion graphic showcasing
the Jetsonville font
• Web page showcasing the
Jetsonville font, including type
specimens in still and
motion-graphic forms
• Progress blog that gives a
behind-the-scenes look at the
development of Jetsonville and
the design considerations and
decisions that went into
making the font
DELIVERABLES
JETSONVILLE
ABCDEFGHIJKLM
NOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
0123456789
.,:;…‘’“”‹›«»?¿!¡/|\()[]{}<>-–—_
•@©®#$¢€£¥%^&*˜§¶°
+÷=≠
áâàäãåæçéêèëíîìïıñóôòöõøœ
ßúûùüÿÁÂÀÄÃÅÆÇÉÊÈË
ÍÎÌÏÑÓÔÒÖÕØŒÚÛÙÜŸ
Type specimen images
Type specimen images
Type specimen images
DELIVERABLES
Motion-graphic type specimen
BONUS DELIVERABLE
Capstone presentation video
• Type design is a very iterative process requiring
patience. Many characters required 20, 30,
or over 50 iterations before I was happy with
them. Here are all the iterations I tried for “a”:
• Further learnings: mathematical precision
and consistency are good. A font without
them just looks sloppy.
• But optics trump mathematics. Sometimes a
mathematically perfect character just looks
wrong. Then it’s time to override the math
and adjust the character until it looks right.
• In the first line below, the “e” is built with the
same arch as the “c”, but it doesn’t look right.
The second line looks better optically even
though the arch of the “e” is narrower than
the arch of the “c”.
NEXT STEPS
Thoughts from Chank Diesel on
Jetsonville's viability in the font marketplace:
“Your font is good, but it's hard bringing attention
to a single-style typeface . . . especially one that is
so interesting . . . generally more exciting and
stylish fonts don't sell as well as more
boring, readable traditional designs.”
Nevertheless . . .
Chank recommended MyFonts.com, one of
Monotype’s font-distribution sites, as a place
where Jetsonville could be promoted and sold.
Chank describes MyFonts.com as “a pretty
common entryway to the font distribution world.”
Based on that recommendation, I am currently
preparing to submit Jetsonville to Monotype
for possible sale on MyFonts.com.
UPDATE:
WELCOME TO JETWORLD
Jetsonville, renamed to Jetworld, is
now available for sale at MyFonts.com.
(Click the image below to go to the
Jetworld page at MyFonts.com.)
LINK TO BIBLIOGRAPHY
LINK TO
PROGRESS PLATFORM
Progress platform (blog):
Jetsonville: The Space-Age Font
With the Retro-Forward Look
Visit the Progress Platform for a
detailed behind-the-scenes look at
“how the sausage is made” (or in
this case, how the font is made).
ABOUT THE DESIGNER
I have been a “type guy” since
high school. My first job was
setting type at the local
newspaper, and throughout
my career I have continued
working with type and
graphic design.
I started my design and
production company,
Movable Type, in 1987.
Email:
movable_type@icloud.com
I also have a second company,
Nelson Borhek Press,
and a second career as a
writer, author, publisher,
and magazine columnist.
Email:
publisher@nelsonborhek.com
THANK YOU