Jens Kutilek

The Charset Checker by Alphabet Type is a web service that lets you check your font against a customizable set of languages. You can also use their Charset Builder to generate encodings with the desired language support. Their data is also based on the Unicode CLDR.

I didn’t design italic small caps for FF Hertz because I thought they aren’t ever used.

Yet in the two instances where I’ve seen FF Hertz small caps in use, italic small caps were required. Luckily the typographers involved were quite good at faking them convincingly (not just by scaling the caps down, but scaling caps from a bolder weight).

Uzßai : Maybe a machine reading error? M. Tullii Ciceronis Orationum tomus primus

***

And then, if you are writing a book about the former German country of Ostpreußen, you find some more place names with amazing ß combinations: Didßeln, Laudßen, Medßokelmoor, Laugßargen, Gelßinnen, Tranßau.

There’s also Polßen, Golßen and Mehßow in Brandenburg; Pomßen and Sornßig in Saxony; Droyßig in Saxony-Anhalt; and Barßel, Börßum and Veerßen in Lower Saxony.

Most of these combinations shouldn’t need kerning though.

John Savard said:

Of course, the first thing I thought of when I saw that you were doing a typeface based on a shape intermediate between a square and a circle was Melior, designed by Hermann Zapf using the superellipse of Piet Hein.

Hermann Zapf retrofitted the mathematical principle on his typeface Melior after the fact. Melior was drawn without any mathematical exactness, it’s very calligraphic in its details. It was designed in the 1950s, and the superellipse became popular in architecture in the 1960s, so Zapf gladly made the connection to his typeface.

By the way, there isn’t a single superellipse, there is an infinite number of superellipses with parameters between a normal ellipse and a rectangle.

ẞI  ANSTˆẞIGKEIT

This should probably read "ANSTÖẞIGKEIT".

Some words for the missing combinations:

ẞJ GROẞJÄHRIGKEIT
ẞX GROẞXYLOPHON
ẞY FUẞYOGA