Hello!
What makes a beautiful minim head? I've attempted a mathematical approach to the design and I think I've come up with something quite elegant, though there could be more improvements to be made.
Here's an example of it (alongside a correspondingly designed crotchet notehead) in use.
Why the lines are different widths I'm not sure; the anti-aliasing in Adobe Acrobat seems to be quite poor.
For comparison, here are eight minim heads in different fonts.
Take this comparison render with a grain of salt. Whilst attempting to put this together, I noticed that the attractiveness of the noteheads varied according to the size of the music. I think this is worth researching in to as perhaps a "best" font would have varying designs according to resolution. Also, this comparison is a composite of screenshots taken from Finale's internal rendering. As such, the glyphs appear to be quite roughly rasterised. I'll post a vectored version if I can figure out a way to get the glyphs to display at the correct sizes.
~Fluffeh
EDIT: Removed night-time grumpiness.
Minim Head Design and Comparison
Minim Head Design and Comparison
Last edited by Fluffeh on 03 May 2016, 03:56, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Minim Head Design and Comparison
Thanks for that. Someone more knowledgeable with mathematic/arithmetic/design perhaps will comment your design...!
My favourites are Maestro and Vienna note-heads.
Maestro, since it has flattened edges with staff lines which makes them "stuck" into the staff, for my eye.
Vienna has a very interesting middle-hole, in a way it is straight and small, which makes the whole to pop-out, be bold, yet very balanced in the power. Vienna noteheads in action:
My favourites are Maestro and Vienna note-heads.
Maestro, since it has flattened edges with staff lines which makes them "stuck" into the staff, for my eye.
Vienna has a very interesting middle-hole, in a way it is straight and small, which makes the whole to pop-out, be bold, yet very balanced in the power. Vienna noteheads in action:
Re: Minim Head Design and Comparison
Interesting! Up close, the Vienna font looks bad, but zoomed out to score resolution it looks beautiful. It seems that there is some optical illusion going on — Vienna is designed to look amazing at small resolution but I probably wouldn't use it at large resolution.
You say a minim head should "stick to the staff" and "pop out", so I quickly reworked my minim design to more closely resemble Vienna — the hole is now pill-shaped rather than elliptical. The mathematics behind it is somewhat more complicated but simply put, it has the same volume as the original hole, bar a few adjustments. I'll post the mathematical diagram in a moment. In hindsight my original minim design was actually filled with flaws that should be addressed now.
You say a minim head should "stick to the staff" and "pop out", so I quickly reworked my minim design to more closely resemble Vienna — the hole is now pill-shaped rather than elliptical. The mathematics behind it is somewhat more complicated but simply put, it has the same volume as the original hole, bar a few adjustments. I'll post the mathematical diagram in a moment. In hindsight my original minim design was actually filled with flaws that should be addressed now.
Re: Minim Head Design and Comparison
I absolutely prefer this shape, your second version, it feels more stable IMO, particularly true in 'live' situation (music example).
Freelance Composer. Self-Publisher.
Finale 27.5 • Sibelius 2024.3• MuseScore 4+ • Logic Pro X+ • Ableton Live 11+ • Digital Performer 11 /// MacOS Monterey (secondary in use systems: Fedora 35, Windows 10)
Finale 27.5 • Sibelius 2024.3• MuseScore 4+ • Logic Pro X+ • Ableton Live 11+ • Digital Performer 11 /// MacOS Monterey (secondary in use systems: Fedora 35, Windows 10)
Re: Minim Head Design and Comparison
Finally got the comparison to a fair quality.
Also a couple of other noteheads I finished working on.
I tried applying the same principles from the minim notehead to the semibreve notehead and it didn't turn out quite nicely... Continuing the comparison— what makes a beautiful breve/semibreve/crotchet etc.?
Also a couple of other noteheads I finished working on.
I tried applying the same principles from the minim notehead to the semibreve notehead and it didn't turn out quite nicely... Continuing the comparison— what makes a beautiful breve/semibreve/crotchet etc.?
Re: Minim Head Design and Comparison
Dear Fluffeh,
Can you post your noteheads in a situation, like mine above? How it would look in a dense situation or more loose?
Also, how they look in combination with other symbols: accidentals, clefs, flags... It is also important.
Have you tried to change the angle?
I really have no clue what makes it to be beautiful, but when I see one I can tell it is beautiful.
Can you post your noteheads in a situation, like mine above? How it would look in a dense situation or more loose?
Also, how they look in combination with other symbols: accidentals, clefs, flags... It is also important.
Have you tried to change the angle?
I really have no clue what makes it to be beautiful, but when I see one I can tell it is beautiful.
Re: Minim Head Design and Comparison
Oops! Silly me, I should have remembered to do that.
Give me a moment to find an example, most of my music is quite modern and as such lacks the breves.
I think the perfect angle might be 30° — I will post a comparison of different angles though to make sure.
Give me a moment to find an example, most of my music is quite modern and as such lacks the breves.
I think the perfect angle might be 30° — I will post a comparison of different angles though to make sure.
Re: Minim Head Design and Comparison
I think that the inner white space (hole) and the angle of it is important for notes on lines. If to little angle is applied, the legibility will not be sufficient.
I would definitely try to test with different angles, particularly for the hole. Maybe it doesn't need to be the same angle as the outer shape. Just ideas.
I would definitely try to test with different angles, particularly for the hole. Maybe it doesn't need to be the same angle as the outer shape. Just ideas.
Re: Minim Head Design and Comparison
I agree with OCTO, except that I do feel that the angle of the notehead and it's counter has to be the same. 30° seems pretty ideal to me, and this is the angle I use myself.
Also, I find the completely straight lines in the counters of some of the above examples to be undesirable. There needs to be a slight curve all the way around both the inner and outer shapes, or else the shape will not look dynamic.
Also, I find the completely straight lines in the counters of some of the above examples to be undesirable. There needs to be a slight curve all the way around both the inner and outer shapes, or else the shape will not look dynamic.