Hi everyone,
I've decided to gather my thoughts and recommendations on how to draw a functional and handsome capital eszett in an illustrated webpage. I'd be happy to hear your opinions!
Work in progress: I intend to add some examples of good and bad designs found in Google Fonts. (Unfortunately, it's mostly bad examples at the time of writing...!)
Cheers, Christian
Comments
For the "serif" at the top right discussed at the very end, that form mostly calls to my mind the spur on lowercase /e in types like Nicolas Jenson's. I'd probably be most inclined to employ it in faces like that. Do you see that as a sensible parallel?
Tim, I disagree with that. It’s like saying the A must have a flat roof to work. Flat-roofed A’s do exist, and they do improve texture (at the cost of A-ness), but they don’t fit most typefaces stylistically.
Note that I used to be actively opposed to rectangular roofs in eszetts, but have since accepted them as viable. I even include them in my upcoming list of good examples.
I'm sensing a gap in my otherwise semi-encyclopedic typographic knowledge.
Venetian oldstyle typefaces usually have relatively low thick/thin contrast (as traditional serif typefaces go), angled stress, and traditional oldstyle Trajan cap proportions (narrow BPSEFL and wide CDGHMNO).
Some examples: Morris’ Golden Type, Centaur, Jenson, Berkeley Oldstyle, Brioso
(thanks Thomas)