Italic stem optical compensation

Sérgio Provença

Hi, Everybody, I've recently attended a 3 day typeface design workshop by Iñigo Jerez (Textaxis), where I presented one of my ongoing projects, which is a highly modulated serif text face with aldine feel. However I've just begun drawing  the italics and the ascendant stem angle compensation still puzzles me a bit. Is there a paper withadvice I could read/download out there. Or can anyone give me some basic advice? Thanks. ;b

James Puckett

Are you asking about how to reduce the weight of the italic so that its color matches the roman?

Chris Lozos

Or are you asking about tapering the ascenders?

Paul Miller

James Puckett said:

Are you asking about how to reduce the weight of the italic so that its color matches the roman?

I would also be interested in this.

Currently I have no coherent strategy, I just adjust them until I think they look correct.

Is there a better way ?

Sérgio Provença

Hi, folks, thanks for your interest. My doubts are on the different slant angles for ascenders in order to compensate the overall italics angle, which in my case is 6 degrees. Prosaic, I'm sure, if your a seasoned typedrawer, but difficult for me.

Sérgio Provença

For instance, the lowercase "h" left stem has a special slant in relation to the slant of the lowercase "i" for optical compensation, so on and so forth. What I was wondering is if there's some literature/theory on the subject that I could use as reference. Thanks again!!

PabloImpallari

Read all this, it's pure gold: http://briem.net/2/2.3.1a/2.3.1.01.notes.htm

Sérgio Provença

PabloImpallari said:

Read all this, it's pure gold: http://briem.net/2/2.3.1a/2.3.1.01.notes.htm

Grazie mille, Pablo,

I'd already gone through Briem. Though I highly value his advice on the importance of visual perception, I always thought there would be some other type of logic/rationale (apart from mores maiorum) behind an informed and adequate design. 

Thanks again to all!!!