Background
I was approached by Kadem the Comic, a Stand-up Comedian, to create a new logo and identity system for his brand and there was no talk of a custom font in the initial discovery and briefing sessions. It was only after the client picked the logo concept that had a lettered logotype that the idea of creating the font was initiated.
The Process
Using the characters I had drawn for the logotype, I redrew all letters on paper first so that I would be flexible enough to get the exact feel and look that was suitable for the brand. The Goal was to create a font that had a friendly, quirky feel that brought out the character of the comedian at the same time it also had to maintain legibility & readability since it would be used on apparel & posters.
After finishing the sketches I then scanned the sheets into Adobe Illustrator were I redrew the characters and refined them making them ready for export to Fontlab Studio. I used Fontlab mainly for the font engineering process and only a few design tweaks for a few glyphs.
Kadem Crae has tight kerning to match the personality of the Logotype. It has both uppercase & lowercase letters, basic punctuation marks and supports 3 main languages that the brand will use; English, Shona & Ndebele.
The final font is fun, bold and friendly; a reflecting personality of Kadem the Comic himself!
You can check out the full branding project here: https://www.behance.net/gallery/61693953/Kadem-the-Comic
