Rounded Cyrillic M

Adam Jagosz

I've been wondering whether this design, three vertical stems with rounded apices, would be good for the Cyrillic capital and small letters Em (М м). Latin Mm followed by Cyrillic in all samples.

The above examples don't look too refined, but otherwise, apart from adding another set of verticals to a script overwhelmed by them, is there a legibility issue? Can this shape be mistaken for Cyrillic Te (Т т)?

I guess this is an example of such failure:

Note how Zoo 300 tries to mitigate the possible confusion by nudging the apices outwards.

Some, if not most, of these typefaces avoid the issue altogether, for the price of style.

About these I'm not certain.

For Blackletter, this seems to be the only option either way.

Vasil Stanev

It is preferable to use the shape with the acute angles for both uppercase and lowercase. If the lc м has to be like the one in Bauhaus (two Roman arches), add a stroke above the т to differentiate them.

Christian Thalmann

Love that Carol Gothic sample!

Vasil: The м is one of the two glyphs in that sample that strike me as breaking the unwritten rules of blackletter (with у being the other one).

John Hudson

Even with the rounded top, I'd worry that the three-legged М may be mistaken for Т.

Viktor Rubenko

Adam Jagosz said:

Can this shape be mistaken for Cyrillic Te (Т т)? 

Yes, it does. It looks like cursive T, making text less legible, even unreadable.