Munson, a Victorian style slab serif

Paul Miller

Samuil Simonov said:

I honestly prefer the double-c italic ж. The roman Жж have legs that look off, the arms are under elastic deformation, but the legs have suffered plastic deformation, the spring has gone out of them.

Гг look top-heavy to me.

Let us talk about the Cyrillic Ka (and by extrapolation the Cyrillic Zhe).

What is it about the arms and legs that is wrong ?

Consider the following image :-

The first letter in the first row is the Latin K which I'm told is completely unsuitable for a Ka (although some fonts do just that), the second letter of the first row is the Ka as I have drawn it in Munson, the arm has an elegant s shaped curve and the leg comes from the stem horizontally and transitions to a straight slope of about 60° down to the foot.

Would it be better to have both the arm and the leg straight as in the third character of the first row ?  If so then why ?

Or would it be better to have both the arm and the leg curved as in the first character of the second row ?

The middle character of the second row was just an experiment to see what it would look like with a bit of a curl on the end.

The third character of the second row is the Ka as it is drawn in Munson but with less of a transition between the horizontal and the straight sloped section.

Which Ka is most Cyrillic in nature ?

What is it that distinguishes a Ka from a K ?

Samuil Simonov

The top right К is cool, but probably won't work in a serious-looking font.

I like the transition on the bottom left and bottom middle К more than on the current one. It's more gentle and elastic.

I also like the curl much more than the flat foot on the left, but a curl like this will beg for a swallow-tailed ф. Since you already have a curl on я, why not try how it looks?

Paul Miller

Thank you.

I will work on something now I know what is required.

Munson isn't that serious a font, there are several easter eggs in there for those who want to look for them.

Paul Miller

I have, made the changes, this is the latest iteration, the 'Ka' and the 'Zhe' now have curly lower legs.  I have also made a few other minor changes.


Any suggestions for improvement would be very welcome.

Craig Eliason

Lowercase dje/tshe gets clogged—I’d consider a narrower bar. 

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

To me the Ж is best when it's not a combination of other things, especially not two of the same thing.

Paul Miller

Craig Eliason said:

Lowercase dje/tshe gets clogged—I’d consider a narrower bar. 

Sorry for the delay I have been doing other things, in the limited time I have been spending on this font I have been setting bearings and anchor points and extending the Small Caps feature so it also works with Cyrillic

I have revised these characters and narrowed the bar, any good ?



The dje character was originally copied from my other font (Kelvinch) and modified to fit but I then realised that it had a tapering tail and that didn't fit with the aesthetic of the new font so in the later versions I gave it a ball terminal.

Is there any reason why it should not have a ball terminal ?

Paul Miller

Hrant H. Papazian said:

To me the Ж is best when it's not a combination of other things, especially not two of the same thing.

Hmm ... most fonts that I have looked at make the Ж character out of two mirrored K characters. Is this not a good strategy ?

Do you have any suggestions for how I might improve on this character ?

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

The back-curling in the descender of the dje can work –and be very helpful– in a "j" but here it seems superfluous, and combined with the curving top just makes the right side look wobbly.

Paul Miller said:
most fonts that I have looked at make the Ж character out of two mirrored K characters. Is this not a good strategy ?

It's certainly the mainstream approach, but has long struck me as yet another convention we follow blindly. Some form of asymmetry would help the Ж be more itself; possibly as simple as putting the right-hand ball terminal on the bottom instead (like what you're already doing in the italic lowercase form).

Paul Miller

Hrant H. Papazian said:

The back-curling in the descender of the dje can work –and be very helpful– in a "j" but here it seems superfluous, and combined with the curving top just makes the right side look wobbly.

Paul Miller said:
most fonts that I have looked at make the Ж character out of two mirrored K characters. Is this not a good strategy ?

It's certainly the mainstream approach, but has long struck me as yet another convention we follow blindly. Some form of asymmetry would help the Ж be more itself; possibly as simple as putting the right-hand ball terminal on the bottom instead (like what you're already doing in the italic lowercase form).

I went back and took a look at the original Kelvinch rat tail designs which formed the basis of the originals in Munson but I still didn't think it fitted well with the aesthetic of the font so I have added a ball terminal.

What do you think?


As for the Ж, I think I will go with the mainstream.

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

I like that dje.

Paul Miller

The Munson font has just been updated to version 2 with Cyrillic and Greek and a whole lot more open type features.  It has taken a long time but I was busy with other things.