I'm just curious if there's some background to why ball terminals are used for some characters (e.g. a, c) in some serif typefaces (even blockier slab serifs), instead of serifs for all characters.
I feel I've seen both (all serifs in a typeface and the mix of serif and ball terminal), and I figure that perhaps the use of ball terminals has something to do with space/density in a character or aesthetic reasons. But wondering if there's more to it that would guide as to when it might be the best decision to use versus not.
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I can imagine having a design axis that increases the number of ball terminals as you slide along. Or one or more stylistic sets to turn them on.
When making the Armenian component of Ernestine, I was in a position to decide where to put balls; harmonizing with the "mood" of the Latin being the goal, attempting to rationalize where a [right] hand holding a particular obsolete tool would put a ball would have been an arbitrary constraint, reducing the quality of the product.
As well as the ball terminals on /a, /c, /f, /g, /r and /y that one finds in the Clarendon, note also the skinny hook terminals of its /R and /a—all vestiges of the didone which may be considered “transitional”, artefacts of the emergent principle of related boldness (see image below) that occurred in the mid 19th century. By the early twentieth century, fully modernist slab serif designs such as Beton (the slab Futura), Rockwell and City eschewed such devices.
Image by James Mosley from Typophile.
I took Wes' point to be that a ball terminal is simply a particular proportion of loop or knot finial.
The pointed nib was, for the type designer, a conceptual artifice—the ability to write one’s designs accurately with a pen and ink was irrelevant.
The very idea of stroke contrast that was expressed in the didones originated in the manner in which one nib could produce extremes of thickness according to how firmly it was depressed—this was quite alien to punch cutting, and a challenge.
Because the pointed nib could easily fill in any outline, be it the triangular serifs of /S or the round terminals of /a etc., type designers were prompted to incorporate a variety of terminal shapes into their design.
Always, there was a creative tension between calligraphers, engravers and type founders, to see who could produce letter forms that took another skill’s best efforts, as inspiration, and topped them.