I prefer the rounded font of the BLF Q8 (there are 2 font for the BLF GT and are different) and went throught a lot of messages to find its name without result. I tried to find an equivalent but none were as well ābalancedā (donāt know if itās the appropriate word).
I prefer the Ethnocentric Font i posted above earlier over the Unumtu one. The Ubuntu font looks to ācheapā or plain, almost like an enhanced dot-matrix printer font.
For what its worth, I strongly agree. Ubuntu looks extremely plain to me, the Ethnocentric at least has character.
At the same time, and recognizing that in this post Iām contributing to this as well, does it seem to anyone else that weāve spent an inordinate amount of posts on the *font *of the lantern? I guess its a sign that people are excited about this project such that they want to discuss it even when thereās nothing substantive to talk about, but stillā¦
We spend an inordinate amount of posts on everything, the font of the lettering on a BLF light is actually one of the more relevant subjects we spend posts on
Regarding the Q8 font. Iām not sure which text youāre talking about, this one in the first image of post #2?
If so then Iād say with 90% certainty that:
āBLFā = Exo 2 Black
āQ8ā = Magistral Cond Bold
Hereās some quick and dirty mock ups
Exo 2 Black
Magistral Cond Bold
Exo 2 + Magistral
As far as these mock ups go the Magistral is a bit weird with itās T and 1 almost touching and so on.
Mixed fonts donāt work here because of the Lās.
And Exo 2 looks a bitā¦ I donāt know. Itās funky.
I donāt really have much of a preference on this, donāt really care. But if you want some feedbackā¦
It should be something simple and monospaced. And since thereās the line below the text the typeface should āsit flatā on it instead of being rounded on the bottom.
Seeing most of the fonts thus far have been more āin scaleā with the lantern in the logoā¦
ā¦how about the other features instead i.e. the rays of light and the line below?
Thatās Roboto Mono. Still rather thick compared to the lines but overall Iād say it looks balanced. (Youād need to drop it from 350pt to ~250pt to match the line thickness)
Not sure what the size of the logo will be but scaling that image down to 5% on a 93 PPI monitor and leaning back to about a meter away I can still read it just fine.
At this point, I am as confident that the logo is in good hands as is the rest of this project. Whatever you decide at this point I am good with. To me the attention to every detail on this is exactly why I am going to end up buying more than one if for no other reason than to support the cause. This lantern is something to be very proud of and will be more well thought out and better than anything else on the market. More heads are better than one comes to mind here. It will be worth every minute of the wait for a polished end result.
One of my pet peaves is when I buy an amazing product, but the logo looks cheesy because the factory just didnt care about the artwork.
Cheesy logos and artwork always make me question the attention to detail on the rest of the product.
Thanks again DBSAR and everyone else who has contributed so much to this effort!
Sorry for the potato-quality animation. GIF isnāt good at subtle color gradients.
It still needs some adjustments, and Iāve got a lot of catching up to do here in the thread, but I wanted to give people a preview of how the first manufactured prototype looks:
The charge port uses USB-C, with status indicators right next to the port:
About things for me to do to the firmware, this is what I have in mind:
Adjust candle mode to look better. It seems a bit flat on the lantern, and probably needs the amplitude turned up.
Unify the ramping code so all ramping functions are reversible with a hold-release-hold. Currently, everything except the main output modes requires a āclick-release-holdā to ramp down, so a āhold-release-holdā would go up twice instead of reversing.
Make the tint ramping also reversible in the same manner, if I can find a good way to do it. I keep wanting to release-and-hold to reverse it, but it currently requires āclick, click, holdā instead.
Adjust the tint-mixing code to bump up output a bit in the middle tints. At the moment, the output dips a little, and I can probably fix it to make it more flat with a little bit of math. Itās not really noticeable by eye, but itās noticeable with a multimeter.
Add an auto-tint mode if I can find a good way to do it. This would be warm at low levels and cold at high levels. The implementation is easy, but making the UI intuitive could be a little tricky.
Add a blink at the ends of the tint ramp, because itās not always obvious when it stopped.
Decide if tint ramping is fast enough or not, and maybe speed it up.
So there are at least a few things to do. But the lantern is looking good so far. The only āissuesā Iāve found so far are just little things which arenāt really broken but could still be improved.
Form following function -
This thing looks like business! No fake marketing, chrome, bottle openers, compasses or cup holders to add more useless āfeaturesā to cover for inadequacy.
Love the tint ramping -
I will almost always use this on the warmest setting, but the fact that this will ramp is SO impressive.
I just got up and walked a circle around my chair for no reason at all!
The faint glow of the switch is a perfect touch.
I am in for the whole shebang, accessory kit and all.
I hope the optional accessory kit includes:
EVA molded protective soft case (very inexpensive from China)
āā
2. 4 18650 cells
3. MOST importantly a mountable shield/reflector to allow light management for something less than a full 360 field. Our usual crew doesnāt normally want 360 illumination. On most trips, we block 90 - 180 degrees of the output glare so our night vision is not impaired by the direct light while we sit by the fire. The ambient light from fire and lantern is more than enough to see by and walk around in indirectly lighted areas. With a white reflective surface on the non blocked (inward reflective) side of the shield the efficiency in the lighted areas would actually be higher allowing the user to select a lower output setting enabling longer run times and higher output to the lighted areas.
I am eyeballing the amount of frosting on that diffusor while confident this will be thoroughly checked.