‹y› with a clear baseline
Sander Pedersen
Posts: 33
When the rightward stroke of the ‹y› visibly lands on the baseline it can create the appearance of a notch. This is often present in Erik Spiekermann’s typefaces and in some of Nebiolo’s typefaces, like Ritmo (1955. The capital Y has the same structure), Recta and Eurostile. I’m curious if anyone knows of any earlier appearances of this feature, especially in text faces?
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In Old Church Slavonic, this construction also nicely relates the design of the у and the ѱ (Cyrillic form of the Greek psi).0
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Interesting question. Zapf's Aldus (text version of Palatino) and Melior have it (both from early 50s).0
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It makes sense for a high contrast fat face and something like Eurostile, which has deep crotches in several letters, but it’s interesting to see it in text faces, too.0
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I noticed that in Aldus’ italic, compared to something like Janson Text (or quite exaggerated; DTL Fleischmann), the calligraphic construction of the ‹y› is almost opposite in terms of left/right stress. If I were to think of a rationale besides reducing the blackness in the crotch with the flat vertex, the shape does seem to harmonize between the roman and italic.
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I prefer this structure* and would also be curious to know its origins. BTW, J. M. Fleischmann's characteristic "y" is completely different, and to me highly effective.
* From Patria:
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On the other hand…
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