Talking about a standard circular bullet in a sans. Same question goes for similar shapes like the period, periodcentered and the bigger bullet which name I currently can't remember.
I reason the bullets relate to bigger units then glyphs, namely lines of text and paragraphs, so they shouldn't be slanted. Am I correct?
Comments
But I am almost always making typefaces for traditional text setting, not advertising types or packaging design types. In the latter, it is useful for have italicised arithmetic operators etc. to be able to set things like 2+2=5 as a snappy slogan.
Of course, bear in mind that just because a glyph isn't italicised doesn't mean that it might not need to be differently spaced and kerned in an italic font.
∫ and √ can go either way, but should keep the same slant across all styles.
I’m partial to including the registered/copyright/published mark in the same logographic group as the ℮ symbol, but I can see them working nicely italicized.
Some marks, I believe, also require upright designs in all styles – such as the vertical line modifier: ˈ (U+02C8).
Another candidate for upright treatment: the dotted circle, ◌
I don't agree regarding that one: I reckon it should be vertical relative to text, and corresponding to the treatment of the related combining mark in italic fonts (it's part of a set of modifier letters that derive from spacing forms of accents).
Yes to the degree sign and others you mentioned.
The full set of upright glyphs in the Brill italic is actually pretty large: I just picked some of the more common ones. A bunch more are being added in the latest updates.
Not sure what you mean by non non italic, but the forward and backward slash are usually slanted in the italic. This requires some care so that the backward slash doesn't end up too vertical. [This ones a touch too heavy.]
I don't agree regarding that one: I reckon it should be vertical relative to text, and corresponding to the treatment of the related combining mark in italic fonts (it's part of a set of modifier letters that derive from spacing forms of accents).
Thanks! There’s always more to learn. Would you say this is also the case for all of these?
One set I am unsure about is the five tone bar characters and the associated large ligature set. In the Brill italics, I kept the tone bar glyphs upright. But I have seen them italicised in some texts. They're a pain in the neck to slant though, because of all the diagonal angles and weight adjustments to be contended with.
As for me, I slant mathematical operators by the logic that they are surrounded by alphanumerical symbols, powers (superscripts) and so on. I imagine this holds true not only for mathematical equations, but also for Physics and Chemistry, and so on, and the rules may vary between scientific jargons in ways we can't know. More importantly, non-italic versions are contained in the corresponding upright versions of the font, so better to go over the top than cut corners (same goes for the currency symbol). This is just my personal path, could be wrong, could be wrong.
I am interested in some light thrown on the musical notation. I have very limited experience with musical theory but I can't ever remember a friend asking for styles for musical notes (I do know a compositor). As far as I can tell, notes are never italicized.
Usually, the bullet is round in both roman and italic, but in some, even the roman bullet isn’t circular: