Lettering Technique & Theory — TypeDrawers

Science versus reading software

Jasper de Waard — Thu, 09 May 2024 09:23:58 +0000

Hi everyone,

A colleague of mine recently tested Bionic Reading, an app that (according to its makers) speeds up reading (bionic-reading.com).

The resulting peer-reviewed scientific publication also touches upon a few other of such tools, like Spritz (one word at a time), and dyslexia fonts.

Find it here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001691824001811

Cheers,
Jasper

Is there some version of Century Gothic that supports Georgian?

Vasil Stanev — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 10:52:53 +0000

I would like to purchase it if there is. I wasn't able to find one on MyFonts.com

Non-Latin "DNA" words

Tofu Type Foundry — Mon, 25 Mar 2024 21:27:33 +0000

Latin type design has a few common words, like adhesion or handgloves, that contain a good amount of letterform DNA. I find this handy for testing my fonts before fully committing to drawing an entire family. Do other scripts have similar words used for testing? I'm partially interested if Cyrillic type designers write something to test early designs in context.

Exporting a single line open contour svg font from Fontlab

Vasil Stanev — Fri, 22 Mar 2024 17:11:54 +0000

Hello, here is the situation:
1. client has about 15 fonts, only the Cyrillic, and they presumably all look similar - a monoline.
2. he has to get them into ttf so he can use them for his iDraw pen plotter
3. Problem: the plotter wants to draw all the outlines. The client would rather that only the skeleton of the letter is used as a basis for the plotting. Currently, as far as I can see, the drawing had been auto traced and put into the TTF.
4. Here is one such font: Djiovanni, I repeated some of the letters in FontLab as a test. Exported to TTF.
5. Turns out the plotter, for monoline, only understands svg fonts like Hershey.
Is there a way to turn the TTF into something the plotter would understand?

PSA: A guide on how to draw a proper capital Eszett (ẞ)

Christian Thalmann — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 23:44:14 +0000

Hi everyone,

I've decided to gather my thoughts and recommendations on how to draw a functional and handsome capital eszett in an illustrated webpage. I'd be happy to hear your opinions!

Here is the link.

Work in progress: I intend to add some examples of good and bad designs found in Google Fonts. (Unfortunately, it's mostly bad examples at the time of writing...!)

Cheers, Christian

Anchor attachment

Tural Alisoy — Tue, 19 Dec 2023 10:17:23 +0000

Hello. What kind of errors can I encounter if I add anchors to caron or other diacritics? I should also say that there are caroncomb and other combinations.

Where do you put the circumflex in /hcircumflex, and caron in /kcaron?

Cristóbal Henestrosa — Fri, 17 Mar 2023 20:54:44 +0000

I’ve seen these two approaches for /hcircumflex and /kcaron: 1) To put the diacritic at the top of the stem (as in Alegreya), or 2) Floating somewhere near to the visual center of the letter (as in Georgia or Palatino). And even mixed solutions, as in Athelas. I am not sure which one is better. What are your thoughts on this?

Mark to Base on Ligatured glyphs

WAY KYI — Sat, 03 Dec 2022 15:43:41 +0000

I have ligatured glyphs ( above base ) and I want to adjust the kerning by Mark ( ligatured glyph ) to Base ( Base Glyph ). In the first case, I want to adjust the ligatured glyph at the middle of base glyph. In a second case I want to adjust ligatured glyph to the right edge of the post base glyph. I tried with Mark to Base and that did not seem to work ( I put the first glyph as base and ligatured glyph as Mark ). Unless I create two ligatured glyphs ( using different position ) and call upon the right one with back/match/ahead lookup. My question is - ligatured glyph does not act on mark to Base no matter you switch the mark/base to ligatured glyph, Why is that? Second question is what is the best way to adjust them without adding same ligatured glyphs? Thanks

Lithuanian I/i with ogonek in serif typeface

Uwe Waldmann — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 19:34:59 +0000

We know that in Navajo, the ogonek should be centered, whereas in Polish (Ą, Ę, ą, ę) and Lithuanian (Ą, Ę, Į, Ų, ą, ę, į, ų), it should be attached to the rightmost part of the letter (except for Ų, where it's centered if the U doesn't have a downward stroke at the right side).

What does that mean for Lithuanian "Į" and "į"? If there is neither a serif nor a curved terminal at the bottom, then there is only one choice: attach the ogonek to the stem. If there is a curved terminal, the ogonek gets attached to the terminal. But what happens if there is a serif at the bottom, and in particular, if the serif is as large as in, say, Courier? Do Lithuanians attach the ogonek to the stem in this case, or is the serif considered as an integral part of the letter, so that the ogonek gets attached to the right end of the serif instead?

Should roman and italic tabular figures have the same width?

Raphaël Ronot — Sun, 04 Jun 2023 12:30:21 +0000

The instinctive answer is yes...
BUT, in instances where the italic's design is much narrower than that of the roman, forcing the italic .tf to have the same width makes them awkwardly large and/or loosely spaced compared to the rest of the glyphs.
I'm curious to know your position. Do you sacrifice æsthetics for the sake of italic-roman compatibility? Or do you generally don't care and go for a more harmonious design?
Thanks in advance

What were the key changes made when we started designing typefaces for screens?

Niteesh Yadav — Sat, 22 Apr 2023 07:10:15 +0000

I'm trying to find the design features/ strategies used to design typefaces specifically for screens as opposed to how we designed typefaces for print.

Eyeball font identification party trick strategies

John Butler — Thu, 12 Jan 2023 00:04:08 +0000

When I want to recognize a text font without looking it up, one of the first things I do is scan through copy for instances of the italic, because italics are easier to distinguish among. Am I the only one who does this? I always wonder how other folks do it. My identification skill peaked in the mid-2000s, before the number of good new designs exploded, and I don’t bother memorizing sans or script designs. These days WhatTheFont and Identifont have made me lazy.

Beyond that I have a few characters I look for in the Roman that often have distinct features, W U g etc, which I imagine most fontspotters do as well.

Any other tricks? Anything less than obvious?

Wishing fit curves was a thing in illustrator

Lila Symons — Mon, 28 Nov 2022 18:43:11 +0000

(mods, if this is irrelevant, feel free to remove)

Does anyone know if there are any plug-ins that are similar to the fit curve feature in glyphs?

I'm working on vector lettering that has a ridiculous amount of flourishes. As much I would prefer to do all the vector drawing in glyphs, I'm at this point in the project where it doesn't make sense to, but it's so much faster getting all my handles perfect in glyphs.

The Six Basic Typefaces of Massimo Vignelli

John Savard — Mon, 28 Nov 2022 05:10:38 +0000

I remember that at one time there was a thread about how many typefaces a designer really needs.

I just came across one famous list of a very few typefaces - by the noted designer Massimo Vignelli.

His list was: Garamond, Bodoni, Century Expanded, Futura, Times Roman and Helvetica.

In my opinion, that is an excellent list. These six typefaces are all very popular, and they're popular for good reason. (Even if Times Roman and Helvetica are so overused that they will draw some negativity!)

Of course, though, it's also easy to think of a second-string list of typefaces that are still also very worthwhile; for example, Centaur, Bembo, Baskerville, Caledonia, and Gill Sans. (Although, personally, I don't like Gill Sans.)

Do we have Conditional Ligature feature only in certain conditions???

WAY KYI — Mon, 08 Aug 2022 04:56:05 +0000

I am looking for conditional ligature feature only in certain condition? Currently, if I do standard ligature, it will always apply to two or more glyphs whenever it see them. Once it becomes ligature, I can't do other substitutions on lig. glyphs. So I want ligature applied to certain conditions and not always. Or can dlig ( example: t s --> t_s ) be called within calt when they follow certain @LETTERS??? Any advice on this???

Can you do reorder to the glyphs and apply ligature after that?

WAY KYI — Wed, 29 Jun 2022 11:23:09 +0000

Can you do reorder to the glyphs and apply ligature after that?
For example: The glyphs are reordered after shaping like this
ABMC. I have ligature for B_C. So the process could be quicker if
I reorder ABMC ( switching B and M ) become AMBC then apply
ligature to BC to become the final output as AMB_C?
Since this process will call two processes, can this be done in
one process in which I do reorder & ligature? and how? I am afraid,
the shaping engine will reorder the text right after reordering of BM?
What is the best way to do and please share if you have any suggestion?
And can the text still be correct if I change the font? Thanks

Books/methods for learning calligraphy

Michael Stevens — Tue, 14 Apr 2020 20:26:40 +0000

I'm wondering if anyone has a recommendation for a book on traditional calligraphy technique that could be used for self-directed study and practice. I'm a type designer, primarily, so I'm not looking to absolutely master calligraphy per se, but rather develop a working understanding of its basics, the movements of the pen and hand, etc.

I'm not interested in the trendy hand lettering styles that seem to dominate popular calligraphy how-to books. I'd be much more interested in learning to draw blackletter and Old Style roman letterforms (especially roman capitals).

I'm confident that if I were to practice calligraphy for a few months, it would have a positive impact on my digital drawing skills, use of stroke modulation, stress, etc.

Thanks!

OpenType 1.9.1 alpha

Peter Constable — Wed, 29 Jun 2022 16:39:39 +0000

Work has started on OpenType 1.9.1. This will be a relatively minor revision, though there will be one significant technical change: The COLR v1 spec for sweep gradients will be revised to simplify the representation and make it more consistent with CSS.

"Alpha" content has started to be posted for review and comments. See OpenType 1.9.1 Alpha Review.

What's the rectangle surrounding a font glyph, including its sidebearings, called?

arrybarry — Thu, 09 Jun 2022 03:46:31 +0000

What's the rectangle surrounding a font glyph, including its sidebearings, called? I Googled the words "bounding box" and got conflicting results, where some sources say it's the rectangle that bound the glyph tightly (without sidebearings), and others say it includes sidebearings.

Kern On pair and word lists

James Puckett — Thu, 09 Jun 2022 18:03:29 +0000

Has anybody shared a list of model pairs and words used as models for Kern On? I tried searching GitHub but I just get a slew of unrelated stuff.

Font suggestion category?

J. Bridges — Thu, 07 Apr 2022 20:23:28 +0000

Is there a font suggestion category here?

Diacritic Kerning Pairs

Danielillo — Wed, 06 Apr 2022 13:43:20 +0000

Has anyone ever had to deal with diacritic kerning pairs? I made this HTML to copy-paste any case and adjust it manually. Is there any other method? I'm working with Fontlab, I don't know if copying the kerning options of each vowel or consonant that has an accent and applying them to the accented character. The truth is that I'm a little dizzy with so many strange diacritical accents.

How to create a cursive fonts from a design that my friend has drew.

men sin hong lin — Thu, 01 Apr 2021 13:46:04 +0000

Dear,

Please anyone can help me how to create a cursive font with a software like fontcreator or calligraphr online. But the only problem is that my friend has draw it and scan it so i can get it but what are the procedure to create a cursive font.

Please any help...

Sloping math symbols in italic faces, is it normal?

Chris Lozos — Fri, 27 Nov 2015 01:36:58 +0000

When creating an italic face, I have always sloped the math symbols along with the figures since this makes the most sense to me. But, I recently looked at Neue Haas Unica Pro Bold Italic, a recent release, and I was surprised to find that the math symbols were upright, as if they were upright roman! Is this odd? New thinking? Appropriate?

Is German Not in Need of a New Letter?

John Savard — Sat, 13 Nov 2021 03:45:30 +0000

I vaguely remember that in discussions of the new capital form of the eszet, it being pointed out that German has recently undergone an orthographical revision which leads to the sequence sss often being present in words, which leads to awkwardness.

Surely the obvious solution is:

a double-eszet!

What is the exercise called by former students of type@cooper? or type@media I think?

AbiRasheed — Mon, 15 Nov 2021 21:38:26 +0000

There used to be an exercise done by former and current students of type@cooper or type@media(?) I forgot which one. But they had a brief with set parameters and had to design a wordmark using that brief. For the life of me I can't remember it. Anyone has an idea what it was called? I've seen it on instagram done by former students of type@cooper or type@media or whatever it was called.

Thanks

It's not a perfect ellipse, why?

AbiRasheed — Sat, 30 Jan 2016 19:14:23 +0000

I'm pretty sure this has been done before but never understood why. I was just studying Hoefler engraved text and noticed the O wasn't a perfect ellipse as marked in the image below. The overlay on top in yellow is the ellipse and the bottom in brown is from hoefler text. Is there a reason why they do this? If you look at the gif as seen here, assuming its to make up for width optically and even if I pulled the side anchors it looks off in the corners. Not to mention the anchors on the side are not center aligned for the O in hoefler's version, its like it's been pushed up a little. The green stroke aligns with the anchors from the brown text and the orange stroke aligns with the anchors on the yellow ellipse. Maybe I've over analyzing this but I'm kinda curious why its off centered and it's not an ellipse.

Thanks.
Edited image cause the first one was the wrong image.

Thanks

Sketching from the inside (counters) out

jeremy tribby — Fri, 03 Sep 2021 20:13:31 +0000

hi folks! I was wondering if anyone knows of any resources around the practice and origins of sketching from the inside out (counters first). I seem to remember hearing that gerard unger taught this, but haven't been able to find any drawings or process material to support this so maybe I am mis-remembering that. I believe cyrus highsmith may teach a method like this as well?

Lower case r glyph variants in Sans Serif typefaces

Eryk Kosinski — Sat, 14 Aug 2021 15:15:57 +0000

Are there any typefaces where there are more than 1 variant of the r glyph or any typefaces that have a r that is often seen in calligraphic font styles? Something like this.

Font revival from A to B

konrad ritter — Sat, 05 Jun 2021 01:23:57 +0000

Dear typophiles and experts,

I'm a humble amateur who knows next to nothing, but I do love typography like few other things in life. I'm kindly asking for your advice on an unusual question.

I'm trying to learn how to get from a scan of an old face (say, 1200 dpi) to a FLS file. One I get a .vfb file in place, I'll know what to do.

My intention is to make a homebrewed revival of a late 19th-century face for my own, purely personal use. I'm not a graphic designer, not a typographer, not a developer of anything. Just a guy who loves books and has to spend a lot of time looking at printed matter. I don't plan to share this font with anyone, let alone sell it.

With that in mind, I'd like to ask for your opinion on this question:

Where/How can I learn relatively easily to move from a bmp/png/svg file to a Fontlab-compatible file?

Strong desiderata:

1. Shallow learning curve. Regrettably, I have a day job and a family. I'd love to spend a lot of time learning to do this like a pro, but I can't afford that time and effort.

2. Intuitive explanations. I've spent the last 20 years wading through rivers of unhelpful, meandering, confusing talk by my peers. One thing I learned is: intuitive, clear explanations are the best. I don't mind being treated like a child. In this particular matter, I'm no better than a child.

Thank you all for your attention and advice!