Eau de Garamond — a sans distilled from the essence of Garamond

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Comments

  • Providing them for the entire family may be better.

    There’s no reason it should be.

    See https://www.microsoft.com/typography/otspec/name.htm, for name ID 16:

    If name ID 16 is absent, then name ID 1 is considered to be the typographic family name.

    and for name ID 17:

    If it is absent, then name ID 2 is considered to be the typographic subfamily name.


  • Thanks, I won't worry about it for the time being, then.
  • Nathan ZimetNathan Zimet Posts: 76
    edited February 2017
    there was an attempt  :#

    type 1: more like traditional greek

    type 2: suites your style more

  • Christian ThalmannChristian Thalmann Posts: 1,938
    edited February 2017
    Nathan, that second one does look like it could fit into Eau nicely. Are you planning a pull request?  :wink:
  • I've implemented basic punctuation and numbers in Eau Italic now to allow people test-reading Eau on their e-readers to use it properly.

    I've also done some work on the Italic Cyrillic; does this work?




  • I don't like the default/be-cy, the tail is too chunky. Have you tried a more serif-like tail with a thinner upswept terminal? /er-cy looks more vertical than other letters.
  • Hmm, I much prefer the singly inflected design of /be-cy for sans typefaces. If it's too chunky, does this slimmed-down version work better?
    And here's my doubly-inflected proposal. A bit too elaborate for my taste.

  • Ori Ben-DorOri Ben-Dor Posts: 383
    Three quick impressions:

    1. I'm not a Cyrillic-reader, so take this with a grain of salt, but isn't /д's descender too long?

    2. The SW corner of /old-style-9's bowl might be too heavy. 

    3. Looking at the word Garamond, it seems as if /G pulls down while /a pulls up. I'd consider skewing /G to make them more compatible.


  • 1. As far as I know, it's identical to Latin monocular /g, so it should share the descender space of the other descending letters:

    2. Agreed; corrected.
    3. I'm not quite sure what you mean. Isn't that motion just part of the architecture of those letters? In comparison, EB Garamond is more slanted overall, but the two letters still show those divergent motions:

  • Ori Ben-DorOri Ben-Dor Posts: 383
    edited April 2018
    1. If it had been Latin /g, I would have definitely said it went too far down. /y looks fine, /q and /p don't bother my eye, but "/g", set next to other l.c. letters (and specifically next to /y), does.

    3. It's not about the slant angle. I meant skew NE. Pull the leftmost point a little down and straighten the top terminal a bit. But you're right that EB Garamond shows a similar pattern. But then again, what works for one font doesn't necessarily work for another. Maybe it's the the serifed vs. non-serifed terminal that makes it more of a problem in the sans serif version. But I wouldn't say it's a major problem either way, so if you decide to stick with the current form, I wouldn't call it a clear mistake.
  • I like the double-bend more. Could you please show the whole paragraph set with the new less chunky /be-cy? Maybe I'll like it in context.
  • Christian ThalmannChristian Thalmann Posts: 1,938
    edited April 2018
    Ori: I'm following Garamond's proportions, so the descenders are deeper than you're used to for a sans. I'm not going to make the /gsingle shallower than the other descenders, that would look weird.  In any case, the default Italic /g is the binocular one.

    Is this /G better?

    Samuil: Here you go! Ι also made the з wider.



  • Ori Ben-DorOri Ben-Dor Posts: 383
    /g: But straight descenders and curved ones behave differently. The closest thing to a monocular /g's descender you can find in an original Garamond is /y's descender (did I forget some other detail?), and your /y's descender does look shallower (and more balanced), even if mathematically they're the same depth. The thing is, /g's descender has much more mass around the bottom, compared to /y and even more so to /q and /p, so it needs a special treatment. Maybe if you took some tense off the SE corner (i.e. made it less curved), it would move some mass up and make my problem go away without making the whole descender shallower. But I still think you should also try simply making it shallower.

    /G: It's better, buy I'd try straightening the terminals of both /G and /C even more. Anyway, you didn't just straighten the terminal, you've also turned the contrast down a little, by making the terminal and the SW corner thinner (or so it looks). I'd put the lost weight back there. Also, previously the terminal went a littler further to the right, which was nice. Hmmm, I guess all my complaints about the terminal come down to a single matter: it looks as if you simply trimmed the terminal earlier, instead of pulling its end up while keeping its position on the x axis as well as its width.
  • @Christian Thalmann I still can't get myself to like that /be-cy, but let's wait for someone else who can provide critique, I don't want you to change it based just on my input.
  • @Christian Thalmann - maybe it's been mentioned before, but there doesn't appear to be any x-height overshoot on the /a.  It seems to flatten quite abruptly compared to, for example, the bowl of the /d (which does have an overshoot).

    Is this intended?
  • Christian ThalmannChristian Thalmann Posts: 1,938
    edited April 2018
    Samuil: How does this work?

  • Ori: I've had a hard time drawing monocular /g's that I liked until I figured out the tail had to remain «vertical» for as long as possible to give the glyph its proper solidity, especially in the italic, where the bowl is already strongly asymmetric. Thus, I'm against softening that corner. However, I've pulled up the end of the tail to fill up the white space under the bowl; I think that makes for a much nicer glyph overall (without departing from the descender depth):


    Good calls on the /G and /C, I do like the new versions better:


  • Steve: Yes, that's intentional insofar as the /a's top does not just kiss the x-height, it lands there in a horizontal. As such, I feel it wants to be flush with the stem top of /n.
  • Ori Ben-DorOri Ben-Dor Posts: 383
    Looks promising! But I'd like to see how the new versions work in context. Could you please show a block of text (preferably with the word 'Garamond')?
  • Christian ThalmannChristian Thalmann Posts: 1,938
    edited April 2018
    Looks promising! But I'd like to see how the new versions work in context. Could you please show a block of text (preferably with the word 'Garamond')?
    Here's something from the Wikipedia text on Gary Gygax:


  • @Christian Thalmann I like that б!
  • Ori Ben-DorOri Ben-Dor Posts: 383
    /Ga/ looks nice, though I must admit that looking quickly at the original and the new version side by side I'm not sure I'm able to tell there's a difference... Maybe I just got used to it by now.

    /g also looks nice. The descender may still be a tiny bit too deep for me, but any decision you make out of awareness is legitimate.

    Is this /y a stylistic alternate? I don't think it works as well as the monocular /g. Here it's less about the depth and more about the overall shape. It looks rigid and motionless compared to other letters.
  • Steve GardnerSteve Gardner Posts: 138
    edited April 2018
    Steve: Yes, that's intentional insofar as the /a's top does not just kiss the x-height, it lands there in a horizontal. As such, I feel it wants to be flush with the stem top of /n.

    Looking at the word 'wooing' in your recent wikipedia sample, the /g (which shares the same construction) looks a little sunken to me next to the /n.  Also, the /Ka pair looks loose.
  • Ori: The script /y is a stylistic alternate that gets switched on together with the monocular /g, though I agree with you that it works less well than the latter. Maybe I should move it to its own stylistic set. I guess the default /y would work just fine with a monocular /g.

    Steve: I kerned /K/a immediately after posting the image.  :grimace:  I don't mind the «wooing», though. Here's an example of why I would prefer to keep the /a at the current level:

  • caused

    maybe
    c is too small and could get a little more verve;
    a – upper left part of the bowl: lighter? a seems to be the darkest of these;
    u can be narrower, left stem looks a bit stiff;
    s is too small, looks more slanted than cursive.

    Nonetheless, this is a great project!
  • Christian ThalmannChristian Thalmann Posts: 1,938
    edited April 2018
    The narrow build of /c and /s is characteristic of the style; cf. EB Garamond:

    I made /a lighter and /u narrower. Good calls.

    I'm not sure what you mean with the verve and cursivity of /c and /s. My /c already looks more adventurous than the EB one, whereas the cursive approach is what makes the EB /s so extremely narrow. I've tried a version of /s with more horizontal in- and outstrokes; is this what you mean? While I like the shape by itself, I feel it doesn't harmonize with the other outstrokes as much as the previous version.

  • For the s, I think the spine could be a lot more vertical, which will make it look more cursive. Compare your spine to Garamond's.
  • Craig EliasonCraig Eliason Posts: 1,396
    Some of these issues are just inevitable consequences of making a monoline design on a modulated model. 
  • With a more vertical spine, the /s is going to end up either very narrow indeed (like in Garamond, which doesn't work as well in the sans), or then have a very unbalanced distribution of white space...
  • With a more vertical spine, the /s is going to end up either very narrow indeed (like in Garamond, which doesn't work as well in the sans), or then have a very unbalanced distribution of white space...
    I think you could make some progress by making the counters less round, i.e. more pointy.
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