The crossbar and bar mark in Ħ can blend together at small sizes or at a distance, especially in heavy weights. Is it acceptable to lower the crossbar of H so there’s more room for space between the two bars?
Yes, absolutely. It's common practice. 10 units lower on cap H crossbar will look like you didn't even move it down, visually. The heavier the weight... lower crossbar even more and take off even more weight on crossbar & bar mark.
Other glyphs can often be tweaked when a horizontal bar is introduced:
the arch of the h on the /ħ(h bar) is often dropped to fit the bar comfortably, especially in serif typefaces so the bar doesnt clash with the ascenders serif. I've seen some cases where people just omit the ascender's flag serif.
the same can apply to the /đ (d with stroke) also.
I have seen a reference for this solution once in a book. Havn’t got it at hand right now. But I would also be interested in some background information about this.
Would be even better to go to Malta directly I suppose … alas!
Interesting, I’ve never thought of that alignment as important. And the design-specific demands of lowercase (amount of ascender space, character of ascender serif) seem so particular that placement of that bar often has little leeway, but those demands are absent (replaced by others) in the cap.
These (from Wikipedia, is that Arial and TNR?) don’t align. It does seem like you could lower the lowercase serif bar to match, though that serif cap bar feels high to me. And in the sans you’d have to raise the cap bar to match, and I think that would feel too high too.
This would be even trickier in one of the many typefaces with low cap heights (vs. ascender heights).
I find the Ariel and TNR solutions you have shown awkward. Again, this is a preference to me, not a rigid rule.
Also, as Paul Hanslow said above: "the arch of the h on the /ħ(h bar) is often dropped to fit the
bar comfortably, especially in serif typefaces so the bar doesnt clash
with the ascenders serif."
Comments
It's all whatever works visually.
the arch of the h on the /ħ(h bar) is often dropped to fit the bar comfortably, especially in serif typefaces so the bar doesnt clash with the ascenders serif. I've seen some cases where people just omit the ascender's flag serif.
the same can apply to the /đ (d with stroke) also.