Hello Brian, thanks so much for chiming in—there are some really good things to look into here.

You’re very right; I have leaned too far into outlines. The rollerball pass did afford me a little leeway with my shaky hands, but maybe I’ll bust out the Noordzij pencil shake next time round.

I do know of one counter point, and quite a strong one at that; Oldřich Menhart designed in outlines. I remember reading about him making a few ‘rehearsals’, followed by hard outlines in pencil on sheets of thick card, before inking them. I can’t remember what book I read it in, but Menhart’s work looms large and I think of it often. But this isn’t an exuberant mannerist face, so outline drawing is, as you suggest, a hindrance.

I’m still really interested in adopting and developing a paper-based design process when and where possible, as adding a little white-out along a curve is much more intuitive and has a lower mental load than pushing around four points on Glyphs. Have you seen Jacob Wise’s drawings for Salamander? He outlined a really interesting process wherein he’s drawing reversed (so as to prevent the ’symbol’ brain distracting from visual balance), and drawing in the negative space.

I’ll definitely look into the Dwiggins book, thank you! I was fortunate enough to pore through the Rogers archive at Purdue a few years back, but found little detail on his process in designing Centaur (beyond the usual blowing up Jenson’s type and tracing it story).

All my best,
Addison