Should the bullet sign be slanted in italic?

Vasil StanevVasil Stanev Posts: 759
edited March 2018 in Technique and Theory
Talking about a standard circular bullet in a sans. Same question goes for similar shapes like the period, periodcentered and the bigger bullet which name I currently can't remember.

I reason the bullets relate to bigger units then glyphs, namely lines of text and paragraphs, so they shouldn't be slanted. Am I correct?  :#

Comments

  • John HudsonJohn Hudson Posts: 2,955
    Yes, because of their use as higher level and navigational elements, I don't italicise bullets. However, smaller punctuation such as period and midpoint (periodcentered) are normally italicised.
  • AbrahamLeeAbrahamLee Posts: 262
    What about other non-alphabet characters? I’m thinking things like < > | ^ + # % etc. I’ve always wondered. It seems like sometimes they are italicized (not the faux-italic shearing that many apps do), sometimes they aren’t.
  • AbrahamLeeAbrahamLee Posts: 262
    Thanks @John Hudson. Do you have a fairly standard set of glyphs that don’t get italiced?
  • AbrahamLeeAbrahamLee Posts: 262
    Great! Thanks for sharing that!
  • notdefnotdef Posts: 168
    You might add: ^ ◊ ‖ ¦ ∞ ∏ ∑ ℮

    ∫ and √ can go either way, but should keep the same slant across all styles.

    I’m partial to including the registered/copyright/published mark in the same logographic group as the ℮ symbol, but I can see them working nicely italicized.

    Some marks, I believe, also require upright designs in all styles – such as the vertical line modifier: ˈ (U+02C8).

  • notdefnotdef Posts: 168
    edited March 2018
    Well, that turned out well. Here’s a “translation”:
     

    Another candidate for upright treatment: the dotted circle, ◌ 
  • notdefnotdef Posts: 168
    The degree symbol is something I also tend to keep upright.
  • Should the forward slash be slanted in non non italic styles?
  • John HudsonJohn Hudson Posts: 2,955
    Some marks, I believe, also require upright designs in all styles – such as the vertical line modifier: ˈ (U+02C8).

    I don't agree regarding that one: I reckon it should be vertical relative to text, and corresponding to the treatment of the related combining mark in italic fonts (it's part of a set of modifier letters that derive from spacing forms of accents).

    Yes to the degree sign and others you mentioned.

    The full set of upright glyphs in the Brill italic is actually pretty large: I just picked some of the more common ones. A bunch more are being added in the latest updates.

  • John HudsonJohn Hudson Posts: 2,955
    Should the forward slash be slanted in non non italic styles?

    Not sure what you mean by non non italic, but the forward and backward slash are usually slanted in the italic. This requires some care so that the backward slash doesn't end up too vertical. [This ones a touch too heavy.]
  • notdefnotdef Posts: 168
    > Some marks, I believe, also require upright designs in all styles – such as the vertical line modifier: ˈ (U+02C8).

    I don't agree regarding that one: I reckon it should be vertical relative to text, and corresponding to the treatment of the related combining mark in italic fonts (it's part of a set of modifier letters that derive from spacing forms of accents).

    Thanks! There’s always more to learn. Would you say this is also the case for all of these?


  • Thomas PhinneyThomas Phinney Posts: 2,732
    A list of glyph names that I came up with for upright-in-italic designs, years ago, when working on Hypatia Sans:

    asterisk
    plus
    less
    equal
    greater
    asciicircum
    bar
    asciitilde
    trademark
    copyright
    logicalnot
    registered
    degree
    plusminus
    .notdef
    revlogicalnot
    uni2120
    uni2117
    estimated
    uni2190
    uni2192
    arrowup
    arrowdown
    lessequal
    greaterequal
    approxequal
    notequal
    uni2213
    infinity
    lozenge
    integral
    radical
    uni25A0
    uni25B2
    uni25B3
    uni25B6
    uni25B7
    uni25BC
    uni25BD
    uni25C0
    uni25C1
    uni25C9
    uni25C6
    uni2610
    uni2611
    uni2713
    uni2752
  • John HudsonJohn Hudson Posts: 2,955
    Frode, I italicise all combining marks and modifiers. They belong with the letters and should inherit the slant and style of the italic.

    One set I am unsure about is the five tone bar characters and the associated large ligature set. In the Brill italics, I kept the tone bar glyphs upright. But I have seen them italicised in some texts. They're a pain in the neck to slant though, because of all the diagonal angles and weight adjustments to be contended with.
  • Vasil StanevVasil Stanev Posts: 759
    edited March 2018
    I did not expect the thread to develop that much. Give yourselves a hand! :)
    As for me, I slant mathematical operators by the logic that they are surrounded by alphanumerical symbols, powers (superscripts) and so on. I imagine this holds true not only for mathematical equations, but also for Physics and Chemistry, and so on, and the rules may vary between scientific jargons in ways we can't know. More importantly, non-italic versions are contained in the corresponding upright versions of the font, so better to go over the top than cut corners (same goes for the currency symbol). This is just my personal path, could be wrong, could be wrong.

    I am interested in some light thrown on the musical notation. I have very limited experience with musical theory but I can't ever remember a friend asking for styles for musical notes (I do know a compositor). As far as I can tell, notes are never italicized.
  • Nick ShinnNick Shinn Posts: 2,131
    I vary my practice depending on the typeface.
    Usually, the bullet is round in both roman and italic, but in some, even the roman bullet isn’t circular:


  • notdefnotdef Posts: 168
    edited March 2018
    Actually, # is often slanted even in the roman styles. With even more slant, it can start looking kinda silly.
  • Mark SimonsonMark Simonson Posts: 1,652
    # is a bit like @ in that it came from a generic "sorts" font in the metal days, and wasn't typeface specific until more recently, especially since PostScript. I guess if the font is meant to look traditional, stick with the slanted version. Otherwise, I think you can do what you think fits the design.
  • Mark SimonsonMark Simonson Posts: 1,652
    Dé jà vu!
  • AbrahamLeeAbrahamLee Posts: 262
    Oh, that’s too funny! Thanks @Vasil Stanev for pointing out that thread.
  • Thomas PhinneyThomas Phinney Posts: 2,732
    In most cases, I find a mechanically obliqued bullet just looks ugly, and would use a circular one, even in italics, and I would create the italic font that way in the first place. Clearly, it is a matter of taste/preference, though.
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