Hummingbird - Regular

Without contextual alternates, the typeface looks a bit more structured and consistent, less random and natural; it will still be more approachable than a traditional formal script, yet retaining its own airy charm. I will gesturally draw the same letters over and over again, so many times that I can create each one based on muscle memory. Walk into her studio each day and the work on the canvas changes, sometime dramatically, telling a different story with each layer. The alternates bring a flowing randomness to the typeface, tempered by their reference to a more natural handwritten appearance, rather than acting as a sort of decorative embellishment. Typically, I'm much more deliberate in my process. As I sketched, I watched hummingbirds flit ab Some letters have different beginning forms, all have different ending forms, and with double letter occurrences, one of the letters will use the alternate. Think of the fine artist who begins with a blank canvas that becomes layer after layer of paint. PROCESS My process is intuitive and iterative. As a designer, you'll have a feel for this. Two stories came together as I worked on Hummingbird. When should you turn off contextual alternates? Depending on your readership, some may not notice the subtleties, yet their visceral response may differ when they view your work. Pencil is great for this; it's easy to do huge, gestural swoops. Because this was so flowing rather than angular, I needed to use that repetitive/muscle memory technique even more than I usually do. OFF OR ON? First, I'd used gel pens to decorate a cake and loved the sensuality, the fluidity and the syrupy gooeyness of it. I was attracted to the tactility, the rhythmic ebb and flow of a substance that was like thick waterI yearned to immerse my hands in it. The font also has 266 swashes that include an entire set of decorated uppercase letters that add personality, emphasis, and beauty. Check your software; your mileage may vary. Despite the precision required of my finished fonts, I often feel my way there in my sketches using brushes and pens, not sure where the journey will end. Most of my work is done in studio, but I'll also do the earlier conceptual and sketchbook work out in the country. Will it end the sentence and require a finishing out-stroke, a little flourish that says, This word has played its part.? The aim, across the past few centuries, was a graceful, yet disciplined uniformity. Contextual alternates do not appear as a web font, but they function by default for print work in software like InDesign, or for logo or other illustrative work in Photoshop, Illustrator and others. If you're not a typographer, or familiar with the term, consider this: Type a letter, and its appearance will vary depending on its placement and adjacent letters. CONTEXTUAL ALTERNATES A unique feature of Hummingbird is its impressive number of these subtle variations, known as contextual alternates. A long upsweep from the base of the g transform into the curving ascender of the b, and then a tender little curve connects the end of the b to the beginning of the following i. I start with an idea that evolves, taking detours and different directions, moving forward and back until I have something that is quite different from my initial concept. The second story entwined here was that I wanted to play with something a bit more relaxed than my body of work. Hummingbird has 214 contextual alternates. I found that I couldn't mimic the softness and fluidity using only a brush and pen. My typeface, Hummingbird, uses technical sophistication to bring us a typeface that is lovely, sensual, airy, personal, and, in its sensitively wrought irregularities, as innately and intimately human as the writer's hand and pen. But to the discerning eye, those hours of painstakingly practiced elegant scripts were still, at their essence, thoroughly human, filled as they were with unintentional variations in pressure, contrast, and fluidity. It differed strikingly from much of my work which is more sharp and angular. I did a great deal of experimentation, transforming my feeling, my sense of tactility into something digital. The contextual alternate avoids the rote rigidity of digital production and, instead, turns to the human hand and habit for its answer. I also knew that ultimately this sense of something free-flowing would need to be captured and confined within the constraints of square pixels. Some letters are semi-connected. Will it be a b sandwiched between a g and an i? To view the User Guide that shows all of the features and what's included, visit: NOTE: For questions, including how to use this font and access alternates, please visit the FAQs page on my website: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hummingbird is reminiscent of old-fashioned cursive penmanship, the sort learned by endless repetition and found in treasured letters bundled together by silken ribbons or in worn leather-bound ledgers.

Script Fonts

Hummingbird - Regular