Tironian et ⁊ in Garamond

Options
michele casanova
michele casanova Posts: 51
edited July 11 in Type History
I'm adding some characters to Garamontio (experimental fork of EB Garamond) for transcribing medieval texts (e.g., r rotunda A75B, -rum A75D, con- A76F, d insular A77A).
I'm unsure, however, about the best shape for Tironian et (204A).
In Jan Tschichold's Formenwandlungen der &-Zeichen there's a table with various versions of Tironian et (p. 13), and I've chosen a shape (similar to n. 70) that seemed most suitable for a Garamond.
Are there any suggestions for a more appropriate version? Thanks.



Example of the shape n. 70 (year 1459):


Tagged:

Comments

  • Andreas Stötzner
    Andreas Stötzner Posts: 817
    your current glyph may get a longer horizontal part with a serif. For the downswing part I would consider a descender and a tendency towards a nearly perpendicular orientation, which would meet more with the original shape of the tironian et.
    The r rotunda may get a bit more swing (and also a serif) in its lower part.
    The rum rotunda is OK, just the lower leg is a tiny bit too heavy.
    The shape of d rotunda needs to be entirely redefined. To mechanically base the glyph on o is a no-brainer. Study Carolingian manuscripts, take a broad-nip pen and write the letter by hand. Then you’ll see what this shape wants to look like.
  • michele casanova
    michele casanova Posts: 51
    @Andreas Stötzner  Thanks for the tips. I'm doing some experiments to improve those individual characters.



  • John Butler
    John Butler Posts: 327
    Here’s a weird request: Since you’re already underway forking EB Garamond, would you mind adding Rudolf-Wolf-esque horizontal stress zeros, in lining and oldstyle, found in Stempel Garamond? As a ssxx stylistic set. It’s one of the main reasons I choose Stempel over other Garamonds, and the URW Garamond No 8 in CTAN is unsatisfying for various reasons.
  • michele casanova
    michele casanova Posts: 51
    John Butler said:
    Here’s a weird request: Since you’re already underway forking EB Garamond, would you mind adding Rudolf-Wolf-esque horizontal stress zeros, in lining and oldstyle, found in Stempel Garamond? As a ssxx stylistic set. It’s one of the main reasons I choose Stempel over other Garamonds, and the URW Garamond No 8 in CTAN is unsatisfying for various reasons.
    I did a quick test with my limited skills. I'm not sure the result fully matches what was requested.
    Perhaps the width of the zero character for "onum", "onum&pnum", and "smcp" should be reduced so that they appear less stretched horizontally. Also, with this zero, in bold the character /one appears wider than the other numbers.





  • michele casanova
    michele casanova Posts: 51
    @John Butler A new version of the font (v. 1.003) with an alternate zero is available on GitHub ("font" folder = variable font). I used the OpenType ss10 feature.
    I hope it's useful, even if it's a bit different from EB Garamond (especially the italics and the Q tail).


  • John Butler
    John Butler Posts: 327
    I see what you mean. The outline looks a bit superelliptical. Perhaps simply keep the original outer outline and simply rotate (onum, smcp) or otherwise modify (lnum) only the counter outline.

    Thank you for even bothering to indulge my request even this far. This is something I was going to attempt myself, and I have FontLab 8.1, but I’m unfamiliar with the procedures and etiquette of Github and how to best round-trip UFOs or Fontforge files with the least loss of data, etc. I dig all the other additions you’ve made as well.
  • John Butler
    John Butler Posts: 327
    Oh wow, I posted that comment before reading your latest one. Thank you! I will indeed test it out.
  • michele casanova
    michele casanova Posts: 51
    @John Butler I'll do some more experiments in the next few days.
    If you prefer, I opened an issue on github here:https://github.com/m-casanova/Garamontio/issues/45
  • Andreas Stötzner
    Andreas Stötzner Posts: 817
    I would revise the figure glyphs carefully, and take one or more looks at original specimen of Stempel Garamond (e.g. here). Especially in the case of the oldstyle zero.
  • John Savard
    John Savard Posts: 1,173
    My initial reaction to the original post in this thread was that, while it was interesting, was it really a worthwhile project to add these characters to a Garamond if there weren't existing historical models to draw from - since Garamond didn't yet exist during the period when those characters were used in printing, the time of the incunabula, when (the originals of) Jenson and maybe Bembo were in use.
    But then I realized that I wouldn't have been asking that question if, instead, he had been adding those characters to Times Roman. Of course the go-to do-everything modern serif typeface ought to have characters in it for every application.
    And Garamond is a beautiful typeface, well-suited to making attractive books, so why shouldn't people be able to use it whenever they want? The same would apply, say, to a project to add these characters to a version of, say, Baskerville.
  • michele casanova
    michele casanova Posts: 51
    @John Butler New test for regular, semibold, italic (not on github)


  • Christian Thalmann
    Christian Thalmann Posts: 2,028
    I don't think the old-style /nine/ makes for a good model for the lining /nine/. See your references: They're all more sober and more upright in design.
  • michele casanova
    michele casanova Posts: 51
    edited July 14
    Christian Thalmann said:
    I don't think the old-style /nine/ makes for a good model for the lining /nine/. See your references: They're all more sober and more upright in design.
    Sorry, I didn't quite understand this suggestion. I'm trying to create an alternative version for zeros within EB Garamond. Would it be better to correct the shape for /nine/ from EB Garamond?
  • John Butler
    John Butler Posts: 327
    Yes, those updated zeroes are better. Thank you!!
  • michele casanova
    michele casanova Posts: 51
    edited July 14
    @John Butler See v. 1.004 on github. Let me know if they are good enough in this new version or if there is anything that needs to be fixed.
  • Tofu Type Foundry
    Tofu Type Foundry Posts: 61
    Is this alternate /Hbar based on some kind of historical precedent? I’ve never seen it before.


  • michele casanova
    michele casanova Posts: 51
    @Tofu Type Foundry I added it for a specific request (github). It also appears in Gentium and according to the French Wikipedia it is used in the Juhuri language.
  • John Butler
    John Butler Posts: 327
    These work well, thank you!

Categories