"Medieval" Titillium (an experiment)

michele casanova

In Italy, the font "Titillium" has been adopted as the standard for websites of public administration entities for several years. As an experiment for pages with historical themes (e.g. archives, museums), I'm trying to create drop caps with a medieval touch, starting from "Titillium Title".

Since these are drop caps, I’m currently using a maximum width, which explains the limitation in the width of the letter /M.

However, I’m concerned that the lines might be too rounded compared to the original "Titillium" style (in the image, the letters /I, /J, /K, /L, /S, /V, /Z have not yet been updated).

Do you have any suggestions for improvements or recommendations for sources of inspiration?

Craig Eliason

You might take a look at Gerard Unger's "Alverata Irregular" which took inspiration from medieval letter structures.

michele casanova

Craig Eliason said:

You might take a look at Gerard Unger's "Alverata Irregular" which took inspiration from medieval letter structures.

Thanks. I'm currently looking into Weiß-Initialen and Cathédrale as well.

michele casanova

Experiment with some creatures from late 15th century.

michele casanova

If anyone is interested, now the experimental font for drop caps is available here.

Yves Michel

For those like me who like originality, creativity in the font domain, this is wonderful!

michele casanova

Yves Michel said:

For those like me who like originality, creativity in the font domain, this is wonderful!

Thanks, but I consider this just a quick experiment that could be fixed and improved in various aspects.

Drawcard

@michele casanova I like the experiment overall, but the /D is a bit confusing to me, it's too close to /O. I love the /A and /T in particular. Would be interesting to see how you interpret it in other weights as well.

michele casanova

Drawcard said:

@michele casanova I like the experiment overall, but the /D is a bit confusing to me, it's too close to /O. I love the /A and /T in particular. Would be interesting to see how you interpret it in other weights as well.

Thanks. The /D is inspired by this initial by Zainer, but I understand this can be confusing.

At the moment I don't think to consider other weights ("Titillium Title" has only one weight) but maybe I'll have some time to evaluate it.

michele casanova

@Drawcard I changed some letters (/D /K /M /W). I think /D is a little more different from /O now.

michele casanova

@Drawcard A variable font with different weights (I'm not sure it turned out very well):

Craig Eliason

I didn’t really follow why you’re limiting the width of M (and W), but can that be reconsidered? Those too-dense letters are holding this back. 

michele casanova

Craig Eliason said:

I didn’t really follow why you’re limiting the width of M (and W), but can that be reconsidered? Those too-dense letters are holding this back. 

Thanks for the tip.

The idea is to have drop caps similar to those used in the 15th century. Examining various cases (Typenrepertorium der Wiegendrucke), I saw that they were almost always limited within a square. For this reason I created monospaced drop caps with animals.

I did a quick test leaving more space for /M and /W in the case of the drop cap without the crocodile and the hare.

Edit: The font available on github is updated with these changes (variable font and alternative versions for M and W).

Drawcard

I like where this is going! And in context of a sentence, the /D seems a little more readable to me. I'd probably test it in words like "DOOR" however to see if people can easily distinguish it.

michele casanova

Drawcard said:

I like where this is going! And in context of a sentence, the /D seems a little more readable to me. I'd probably test it in words like "DOOR" however to see if people can easily distinguish it.

The font is intended to be used only for drop caps for "Pass A38" (or "Titillium"). Here are three examples (Lorem ipsum) also using the variable font to increase the weight when the drop cap size is small.

Drawcard

I see @michele casanova - in that case I wonder if introducing a bit of a wave in the top part of the /D might help give it that medieval flavour again. 

michele casanova

Drawcard said:

I see @michele casanova - in that case I wonder if introducing a bit of a wave in the top part of the /D might help give it that medieval flavour again.

A quick test:

EDIT: The "rabbit":

EDIT (2): see updated version 1.206 on github

Drawcard

I do like it more!

michele casanova

@Drawcard I also changed the letters /T and /Q, using a slightly curved line to make them more consistent with /D

Christian Thalmann

I find that new /D/ less readable. Have you considered pulling the left stem all the way up vertically?

Thomas Phinney

Agree with Christian that the D is not working at the moment.
I am a bit fuzzy on his suggestion, but my interpretation is that if the left side stem turned into a vertical instead of curving inwards, it might look more like a D.

Christian Thalmann

Yeah, that's what I mean. Maybe if you want to insist on a bit of wave, raise the flag at its end without breaking in on the horizontal, like in Kuschelfraktur...?

John Hudson

Also, as in Kuschelfraktur, point the left side up towards the top, rather than curling it in.

michele casanova

@Christian Thalmann @Thomas Phinney @John Hudson

Thanks for all the suggestions. I tried to keep the left part more vertical and to modify the upper part (I hope I understood the proposals correctly).

By using a vertical line on the right side and keeping a curve in the top line, the shape seemed too unbalanced to me.

Craig Eliason

Craig Eliason said:

You might take a look at Gerard Unger's "Alverata Irregular" which took inspiration from medieval letter structures.

Rather than his Alverata font, what I should be sending you to is Unger's article on "Romanesque capitals in inscriptions."