Reviving an old project

Christian Thalmann

I believe the stress pattern in /De-cy/ and /El-cy/ is unnatural. Cf. Lexandra's page...

The left stem should probably be consistently thin, pen rules be damned. Cyrillic is like that.

Steve Gardner

Thanks for sharing that Christian.

First, I believe the advice in your image on the left applies to serif fonts, since the more 'acceptable' sans font described on that page have equally thick left and right stems (see examples 5 & 6 in the image below).

So, assuming a 'thick' left leg is acceptable in a sans face, what's the best solution for Caliventa? 

According to the advice, I shouldn't make it thinner as it approaches the overshoot (example 3); whilst a consistent stroke width all the way down and through the overshoot (as in example 6) will look anomalous.

Doesn't Caliventa's pen logic (which requires a thinning and a subsequent thickening at that exact point) neatly solve the problem?

Christian Thalmann

I don't have a holistic view of correct Cyrillic design, but I went through a bajillion iterations on the design of the Ysabeau /El-cy/ with Alexei Vanyashin... and he always wanted the left leg to be thinner than I would have drawn it. Here's the current state in the Black master.

Maybe one can think of it in terms of the Latin U, which has full contrast in its two stems even though they're parallel, presumably because of its historical form V.

Mikhail Vasilev

My opinions on Cyrillic:
/д/ should be changed, stands out way too much
I'd make it more classical, see example:

Of course same applies for descenders in /цщ/.

/и/ : move the middle stem down
/н/: extend the width, it should be significantly wider than /и/.

Steve Gardner

@Christian Thalmann, I'm limited on time right now, but a very quick edit (see below) leaves me stone cold and wondering if it's possible to create a thin, broadly uniform left stem for the /д that actually works within the font.  I suspect the /л will look even more out of place.  I've also shown the /U which, as you can see, narrows significantly at the point in question.

Can font logic ever take precedence, even if it's 'wrong'?

@Mikhail Vasilev, thank you for your feedback.  I'll edit the teeth as recommended.  I've also widened the /н and lowered the bar of the /и.  Did you mean simply to lower this bar, or do you also suggest raising it so that the joints at both top and bottom remain equidistant?

Mikhail Vasilev

Steve Gardner said:

Did you mean simply to lower this bar,

Yes simply lower the bar.

Some more thoughts:

/м/ : should be significantly wider, currentry it's squished almost like in monospaced font.
/к/ /ж/ : same story as with many fonts out there - I wonder how the presence of curly "fairy-tale" styled strokes can be justified? Especially in modern non-curly fonts. So I'd just borrow the style from the Latin /k/ : 

Steve Gardner

Whilst I act on the advice I've received on the cyrillic script, I thought I'd ask again whether anyone has any thoughts on my attempt at Hebrew.

And, maybe a silly question, but is it typical to offer Hebrew italic?  If so, is it simply slanted (oblique) or are there different forms for italic glyphs?

Steve Gardner

Had to step away from this for a while, but I've made a few changes over the last couple of days.

Christian, I tried re-working the /De-cy and /El-cy several times, but each stood out like a sore thumb in text.  In the end, the changes are subtle and I've decided to give precedence to pen logic. 

Other changes include /Zhe-cy and /Ka-cy, as well as a number of minor changes to the relative widths of several glyphs.

On a separate topic, does anyone know of any resources that explain how to correctly implement polytonic Greek?  I've added it to the font, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't function as it should.

Craig Eliason

Should the horizontals in letters like Д Л П Ц Ш Щ be more like H's crossbar than E's arms (that is, monolinear rather than tapered)?

Christian Thalmann

Maybe Craig's suggestion will help the /El-cy/ and /De-cy/. In any case, I suspect /El-cy/ is a bit too wide.

I would also recommend taking Mikhail's suggestion into account. The fact that /Zhe-cy/ and /Ka-cy/ should have straight arms in humanist typefaces is one of the most consistent pieces of advice I've received from various sides, so I believe it represents a genuine interest of the Cyrillic typography scene. Your /zhe-cy/ in particular stands out to me in text, possibly also because it looks compressed?

Mikhail Vasilev

/к/ and /ж/ IMO still ask for wider proportions, it is very noticable at small size.
Bottom foot is too heavy and too round, I'd try this:

Same can be said about the /я/ foot.

/д/ and /л/ are Ok in general, but I feel like /д/ could be improved, maybe try making  the bottom bar concave at the bottom and straight at the top.

A subtle serif on the top left corner maybe? But I am not sure about this, have too see how it will look in the text.

Same uppercase letters look bolder now, but I assume are not adjusted yet.

Kerning of /т/ is too tight in some places, see e.g. /от/ /ст/.   

Steve Gardner

I haven't been able to dedicate any time to this for several months, but I really want to wrap it up and move on.  So, I'm dropping the Cyrillic (which I can't seem to get right) and need to decide whether to include the Hebrew.  I suspect it's going to need too much work to fix, but would welcome any views.

Scott-Martin Kosofsky

Your Hebrew font hews closely—a bit too close for comfort, I think—to Ismar David’s eponymous typeface. But where it diverges, it does so uncomfortably, sometimes betraying a misunderstanding of the basic letterforms. For example, your final nun (nun sofit) is an elongation of the form of the zayin, which is incorrect and strange; what it wants to be, in this design, is an elongation of the vav. Similarly, your final chaf is an elongated resh when it wants to be something closer to the form of the dalet.

In some letters you seem uncertain of the axis: for example, mem and chaf lean a bit to the right when they want to lean a little left. Same for the final mem and shin (too wide, as are the lamed and samekh). Alef and zayin look uncertain as to where they are headed. All of this makes the font look a bit wobbly, a quality that’s made worse by the letters that don’t quite make it to the baseline (the pointed tips should be a little below the baseline in order to look aligned). 

But all in all, it’s not a bad start, though I’m afraid that if you correct all of the things I’ve mentioned and left all the rest unchanged, you’d simply be making a copy of David!