How to make small caps from Lj and Nj

Michał Jarociński
Michał Jarociński Posts: 10
edited May 2015 in Type Design Technique & Theory
Hi there, 

I just wonder how to resolve this. I saw that Peter Biľak on his Greta uses extremly scaled uppercase J. Also Adobe's Garamond follows this routine. Are there other way to design .sc Lj and Nj?

Thanks.
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Comments

  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,488
    edited May 2015
    There's no reason to do anything peculiar with these digraphs; indeed, they can legitimately be decomposed to L+j and N+j (they have compatibility decompositions in Unicode). The only reason these digraphs have atomic encodings in Unicode is for backwards compatibility with old Yugoslav encoding standards that enabled a direct conversion between Cyrillic and Latin display of Serbo-Croatian text.

    If not decomposed, then in the <c2sc> feature, both letters in the smallcap digraph glyph should take their normal smallcap form; in the <smcp> feature, only the J should take a smallcap form (the L and N remain cap).
  • Michał Jarociński
    Michał Jarociński Posts: 10
    Thank You John. So, how do You find Biľak's approach? As I understand You don't like it. Personally, I prefer the conception You described – looks more logical. 
  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,488
    I just tested Greta and Greta Sans on the Typotheque website. They appear to shape smallcaps exactly as I suggested: Cap L/N + smallcap J for <smcp>, and all smallcaps for <c2sc>. You are seeing something different?
  • Michał Jarociński
    Michał Jarociński Posts: 10
    No, You are right. I just didn't noticed that there is also All Small Caps checkbox, and I thought that tester shows all small caps when I checked Small Caps. Sorry. 

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