I want to do some Polish typography, but I can't get the kreska accents to appear. I normally add a localized language feature to my own typefaces to replace acute with kreska when Polish is selected, but I have checked several typefaces from Google Fonts and can't find kreska characters in any of them.
How do I use kreska accents? And is it correct that typefaces like Open Sans, Lato and Noto feature no kreska characters? What are some typefaces that do?
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The procedure is:
1. To add precomposed alternative glyphs with kreska replacing acute.
2. To add substitutions in <locl> feature.
Support for kreska seems to be quite rare until now. With the OT features available for so many years, it is a shame not to see wider and correct support for Polish.
A sample:
I'm wondering how I use the kreska characters of other typefaces, or if perhaps it's just not supported by most typefaces. I saw an image of Georgia with kreska accents, but they were absent in my versions of Georgia.
And what about Noto? With such extensive language support, I would have thought it adequately supported Polish characters. Can people really claim to have Polish language support while not adding kreska characters?
I think it's kind of not a big deal, especially with fonts that include acutes that are not too horizontal. And even if so, not only a random Polish person, but sadly, the majority of our designers, probably wouldn't tell the difference. Bluntly saying.
The real problem is companies like MS selling their products with incomplete fonts - 90% of the fonts included with the Office lacks even basic diacritics, I guess that MS just already was a licensee of the basic versions of the fonts but not the extended ones...
Also, 99% of books here are set in Times New (yeah, it's pretty dull). I never heard of a publishing house buying the font. Isn't that, technically, illegal?
@Martin Silvertant: Many otherwise very competent type designers do not routinely include different versions of their acute accents for Polish. Pretty much all Adobe fonts released or revised in the past 15+ years, which have CE support, also have this feature.
Most of my typefaces have it. It's one of the features the Glyphs tutorials recommend for any typeface.
Cormorant:
Wow, I like it how the (lowercase) kreska in Cormorant isn't meek and muffled as it is in the image in the first comment (I always prefer accents that are a part of the glyph and not just a minor addition), but isn't the height too radical, especially compared to the capital?
... Okay, seeing that in context (the high ascent) explains a lot.
I see you used one design for lowercase acute and kreska. Now I feel the cap kreska is a little bit intimidated. Couldn't it be a little more slanted? As I look at the lower and uppercase, I get the impression the cap is more upright.
Note that there is also the stylistic set SS13 that makes the flattened capital accents taller and therefore more harmonious with the lowercase. This is particularly useful for languages where accented letters appear often and across case boundaries:
Was this just a kludge, as per this example (which I’m assuming is Letraset), or does it belong to a more authentic tradition (even one of traditional kludging)?
glad you like it! What do you mean with Cormorant samples in the wild? Do you know any live usages of the fonts? I'd love to see them one day...!
BTW, I did not design a lowercase kreska, it's really just the style of lowercase accents in general that happens to fit with the slant requirements for a kreska.
Christian, I don’t remember seeing Cormorant being used on the Web so far, but it’s not the first time I see it here on the forum, and I’ve never had this opportunity for a proper shout-out. Until now, that is. From what I recall it has some decent ogoneks as well. Keep up the good work!
It remains a fact that in print a more inclined kreska...
Grzegorz Rolek said: @Nick Shinn
I don't feel qualified to answer that, but I recall seeing that kreska crossing the base letter many times. You might call it a traditional kludge, as it would often be used whenever the space is insufficient, possibly beside a strikethrough Ż (Z dot). I'm not quite sure however whether it's much of a cultivated tradition — such design brings to my mind old printing. Especially that ogoneks were also once (like in 1700s) straight strokes crossing the base letters.
Attached to O, exterior (plaque)
Attached to O, interior (museum portal)
Crossing O, almost vertical (signwriting)
Crossing O, diagonal (signwriting)
Crossing O, diagonal (station sign)
Attached to right of S, like a vertical serif (signwriting)
Attached to Z, almost vertical (signwriting)
Integrated in N, left-leaning (plaque)
Integrated in N, left-leaning (plaque)
Integrated in N, left-leaning (street sign)
Note that all the examples are in all-caps.