Paramond — an extreme display serif

Thanks Alexander, that's very helpful indeed! Is is better now?



Edit: I added a contextual alternate to avoid collision in "Gde".

I finally revisited that ever-problematic /g. I can't believe I tolerated it for so long. I like the new one much better, although it no longer adheres to the «tiny counters» theme. In the end, though, I'd rather have a /g that works and that harmonizes with the other letters than one that looks original.



I also got rid of a slew of /g_y and /g_g_y ligatures (with various accents) just by decoupling the /y from the /v kerning class and adding some positive kerning between /g/y.

Relaxed the neck of /g just a bit; I think that was responsible for the slightly cramped feeling of the new design.

Looks like we'll just have to disagree on the designs, Georg... I feel the upward diagonal of the new design fits the theme of the face's on- and outstrokes much better, not to mention the superior use of x-space. I'll put the top version in a SS, though, either in the calligraphic SS01 or maybe a dedicated one.

I'll see about nudging the bowls for better centering. I don't see them as unbalanced at the moment, but maybe I can do better anyway.

Hi Frode,

I am bound by contract to release Cormorant soon (ideally mid-November), so waiting a year is currently not an option. However, as an open-source project, Cormorant is expected to continue evolving after its first release, so there's no reason not to revisit it in one or two years. If my future changes should affect the «identity-bearing» letters so much as to warrant a new identity, I could release the new version as Cormorant Pro.

Interesting point about small and large interior spaces. I've had a look at a few Garamonds for reference:

Garamond Premier Pro:

Sabon Next:

Adobe Garamond Pro:


In all of these cases, the /a and especially the /e strike me as more open than the /g, but that might be partly due to the fully enclosed nature of /g's counters. It's true that the sizes of /a's bowl and /g's eye are more or less comparable.

I'm not sure how that would translate to Cormorant's design philosophy.  I certainly don't want to increase the closed counters in /e and /a, since that's an identity-building part of the typeface. Then again, I don't know whether I can pull off a similarly tiny counter in /g without turning the letter into a parody of itself. A binocular /g is hard enough to pull off convincingly without such constraints. I have tried a tiny-eyed design (cf. early posts in this thread), but with very bad results. Making the «neck space» tiny would probably result in a cramped-looking glyph with bloated closed counters, out of place between the airy build of the other characters. And making the tail loop tiny would probably tear large holes into the x-space above it; a problem I've encountered before.

Do you have a suggestion on how such a design could be built? Maybe by exaggerating the tail with respect to the eye, Bodoni-style? That might look out of place in a Garalde.

EDIT: As for not confusing personal tastes with serious critique, yes, that's bound to be a problem at my level of expertise. At least my recent motion to change the /g is the result of a longer-term discontent I've been fermenting for months, so I'm pretty sure the motion is going in the right direction as far as my own design intentions go. I might still find a radically different solution that I like even better, of course.

Huh, this looks kinda interesting, though...  let's see where it leads.

Hi Craig,

I'm also not happy with the new bottom; it's far from final. At least it tells me there is hope for making a tiny-eyed design work. My previous designs look bloated to me now in comparison. 

Just for comparison, I've tried a more faithful representation of the Garamond /g. Doesn't look too bad, although the harsh downward motion of the neck is perhaps a bit jarring. (EDIT: Softened that.)

Meanwhile, here's the new /a.ss02.