Best practice to creating distorted text?

Question

Trying to practice better on my typographic logos I wanted to challenge myself in creating a distorted text logo but I was unaware if any practices exist when considering pre-existing fonts in regards to Serif VS Sans-Serif. So my questions are as followed:

• Are there any stroke considerations when distorting the bowl?
• Is there a degree of bend to consider when distorting the Ascender for a Serif or Sans-Serif?
• Is it harder to distort a Serif because of the Bracket, Ear, and Terminal?
• Should an eye be rotated, resized, or just depends on the font?
• Is there an amount of leading you shouldn't exceed?
• Is there an amount of X-height you should consider for the first letter in the word?
• Should you consider a baseline when distorting?

Examples:

Answer 1

The answer to all of your bullet points is "sure, consider everything"

But there is no 'rule' that would apply universally.

Also note that your examples aren't necessarily 'distorted fonts' but rather examples of lettering...meaning these are likely drawn letterforms specific to the particulars of the project.

In either case, the best you're going to find in terms of universal rules would to be just apply general typography guidelines.

Answer 2

I agree with DA01, the examples are lettering, not distortions as such, but I would like to add: when distorting fonts for logos, you essentially create an image. The rule-of-thumbs for legibility do not entirely apply in this case.

I would say that all your questions have one common denominator: what kind of logo is it, for what kind of use?

For a childrens store chain, I would say do whatever you want, as long as the image balances reasonably.Children cannot read :-), they need something recognisable.

For some kind of "serious" company I would tread lighter: consider reversing a letter, maybe a colour difference. Two favourites, would be FedEx: consider the clever use of negative space resulting in an arrow:

..and amazon: clever smile-arrow indicating "a-z"

Revel in the freedom from the baseline!

There are some good examples here. (and some not-so good)

I would say though; that you do not need a font that looks like a dog, to make the content bark.

Edit: oh, and you could use ecomoon to alter single letters and create ligatures to use in text. Could be a fun way to almost create your own font. http://icomoon.io/