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Regular vs Book

Luis Castellon QuesadaLuis Castellon Quesada Posts: 9
edited April 17 in Technique and Theory
Hello folks — I have got a question in regards with type weight, in particular when making a Regular and a Book version. What would be the purpose of a Book version in your opinion? Does it do something point size wise that a Regular cannot? 

Comments

  • Philip LammertPhilip Lammert Posts: 1
    That has been discussed on other threads already.

    If you define it as a weight between light and regular the use follows common typographic rules regarding performance in print, on-screen or readability. If by “point size wise” you mean it could have a different stroke contrast, I would say it is quite unusual to apply that to one single font style only.



  • John HudsonJohn Hudson Posts: 2,697
    edited April 17
    I’m working on a new variable version of our Euphemia family, and since Ross’ original Regular is quite light, I have opted to call the OS/2 weight class 500 instance ‘Book’, since it is close to the weight I would probably choose for 10 or 11 point text.

    Regular:

    Book:

  • Luis Castellon QuesadaLuis Castellon Quesada Posts: 9
    edited April 17
    I see... that's a very helpful information John and Philip, thanks!
  • John SavardJohn Savard Posts: 1,047
    edited April 25
    Hermann Zapf wanted to call the typeface Aldus Palatino Book instead, so comparing Aldus to Palatino would be another example. And there's Bodoni and Bodoni Book.
    If a typeface is designed principally for use in books or other purposes with similar needs, obviously there's no need for a "Book" version of it. But if, instead, the basic idea of the typeface is suitable to both a display face and a text face, then one way to distinguish them would be to call the display face by the basic typeface name, and add "Book" to the text face. I think there are examples, although I can't recall one offhand, where it was done the other way around, by adding "Display" to the display face.
  • Craig EliasonCraig Eliason Posts: 1,327
    That comment arrives at the drawback of “book” as a label: it feels like an optical size but usually is a weight. 
  • Nick ShinnNick Shinn Posts: 1,998
    I recently read We Were Eight Years In Power by Ta-Nihisi Coates, published by Random House in 2017. The colophon identifies the typeface as Bembo, but it is good and solid, so appears to be Bembo Book, and is lovely to read, for my ancient eyes.

    I would say that the extra “grading” (and this is not just press gain) of Bembo Book when printed by offset lithography compensates for the missing “druk”, that occurred with the original Bembo in letterpress. And as John Hudson mentioned, the first digitization of Bembo was made from font artwork, not a printed image, so was a little on the thin side. 
  • John SavardJohn Savard Posts: 1,047
    Craig Eliason said:
    That comment arrives at the drawback of “book” as a label: it feels like an optical size but usually is a weight. 

    Is that a drawback?
    Yes, the "Book" form of a typeface, compared to its regular form, has many of the same differences that you would find in a smaller optical size of the typeface.
    But by making it a weight instead, it becomes easier to specify.
    And, incidentally, it would not be impossible to have "Regular" and "Book" forms of a typeface that was also optically sized.
  • John ButlerJohn Butler Posts: 123
    edited April 27
    And as John Hudson mentioned, the first digitization of Bembo was made from font artwork, not a printed image, so was a little on the thin side.
    I agree, although the first digitization looks quite good at fourteen point.
  • Luis Castellon QuesadaLuis Castellon Quesada Posts: 9
    I totally agree with @John Hudson's views. My feeling was that 'Book' felt a pinch heavy on the digital environment but ideal for printing body text. I wonder whether the potential customers are not confused or simple not well informed about these nuances when they see a type family they like including these two variants. I was...
  • Nick ShinnNick Shinn Posts: 1,998
    In the digital era, Fontlab, for one, contributed to the confusion, by assigning the numerical value of 400 to all three of Book, Regular and Normal weights, in its Font Info dialogue.
    Therefore, if a FL user wanted to include two of these weight names in a typeface, it was debatable which should officially be the heavier, and which the lighter, with the result that in practice, from different foundries, both resulted.
    Although Book does occur higher up the list, suggesting that it is the lighter:




  • John ButlerJohn Butler Posts: 123
    Another good example to compare is Gentium vs Gentium Book.
  • Thomas PhinneyThomas Phinney Posts: 2,508
    @Nick Shinn

    The OpenType spec itself indicates that Regular and Normal share the same weightclass, 400.

    It does the same thing with ExtraBold and UltraBold (both 800), and Black and Heavy (both 900).

    https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/opentype/spec/os2#usweightclass
  • Chris LozosChris Lozos Posts: 1,438
    It does the same thing with ExtraBold and UltraBold (both 800), and Black and Heavy (both 900).
    I sure wish it indicate order did so we can end this wishy-washy lack of ordinal listing.  Why not 850 and 950?


  • Mark SimonsonMark Simonson Posts: 1,568
    edited May 5
    Because some ancient version of Windows couldn't deal with weightclasses that weren't evenly divisible by 100.
  • John HudsonJohn Hudson Posts: 2,697
    The subset of valid usWeightClass values (1–1000) that are mapped to nominal weights could certainly be supplemented by additional named weights, but at this stage this would be likely to produce a lot of inconsistent and non-standard font name/weight mappings. About the only common one that seems fairly consistently implemented is 

    350 = Semi-light
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