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Cedilla design options - Verdana style
Adam Ladd
Posts: 250
I know this has been discussed in some ways before, but I've run across another cedilla design that I wasn't as familiar with in Verdana. It's almost like a flip of the ogonek (sorry for the small image):
I'm used to seeing the more "traditional" design or one that is more like a comma, so I'm wondering how this registers to others... is it an acceptable design?
I ask in part because I'm working on a display font that is meant to be tightly spaced and stacked, so I'm trying to keep descenders as short as possible, and this approach may work better (particularly in the heaviest weights).
I'm used to seeing the more "traditional" design or one that is more like a comma, so I'm wondering how this registers to others... is it an acceptable design?
I ask in part because I'm working on a display font that is meant to be tightly spaced and stacked, so I'm trying to keep descenders as short as possible, and this approach may work better (particularly in the heaviest weights).
0
Comments
Or is it still not a good option for native readers?
And it’s not as if French type designers have been permanently wedded to the venerable sickle shape. Excoffon, for instance, employed the comma form of cedilla in Antique Olive. I vaguely recall that some Frutiger types also once had that shape, but perhaps they have been traditionalized since then?
ccedillla is quite common in portuguese and used in basic words like 'cabeça' (head), 'maçã' (apple), 'Terça' (tuesday) and many others. As in French, the cedilla is a diacritic, but other languages may have a different usage... as far as I understand, "ç" and /scedilla are actual letters of the Turkish alphabet.
My personal preference is the "little zed" shape, mostly because I'm more used to read it. But I don't know what is more usual for other languages other than portuguese. I'd design the seminal "zed" shape, for text fonts at least. But the cedilla from Verdana is ok and quite a few fonts use it (you can check here -- click on "view all")
The problem with Verdana is the position of the cedilla, which is unbalanced, pretty much like the ogonek is. The last image you sent feels much better.
A quick look at the first few fonts listed on that site shows already some that use this style (with the vertical stroke angled)—Bitstream Vera Sans and Calibri...
I would lean towards the more traditional design for a text face as well, but figured there may be a little more liberty with display fonts.
Also thanks to @Nick Shinn for his usual refreshing rationalizations.
* I'm not confident in my word choice but hopefully you know what I mean.
🤘
I don’t know, as in Italian we use neither, but it seems odd to design two different diacritics in the same way.
Well, Eric Gill designed his /1 almost as an /I but that had to be read in context…
But I see the two accented /Ss represent the same phonetic value, and since Ray said: «No currently used languages require differentiation between comma accent and cedilla» I guess they could eventually be merged by means of use.
Besides, with such accented characters it always depends on which models you are following, and if they have calligraphic/typographic precedents of note.
Model the future.