Critique Request for Hibur Mono (a new Ethiopic Typeface)

Daniel Yacob
Daniel Yacob Posts: 25
edited June 1 in Type Design Critiques

Hello Everyone,

Along with the designer, Behailu Barento (@typehabesha ), we are very happy to introduce the Hibur Mono typeface, available for review from:  https://github.com/typehabesha/HiburMono/

A synopsis: Hibur Mono is a single-weight, monospaced, Ethiopic typeface designed for columnar display environments such as computer terminals and software code development interfaces.

The Hibur Mono Ethiopic glyphs have been designed from the ground up and optimized for the fixed-width contraints of a monospaced typeface. Hibur Mono is compatible with the Noto Sans Mono geometric dimensions. The non-Ethiopic glyphs in Hibur Mono have also been leveraged from Noto Sans Mono.

Samples below, and a proof file attached.

thank you kindly,






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Comments

  • Christian Thalmann
    Christian Thalmann Posts: 2,065
    I don't know Ethiopic at all, but are the near-miss alignments such as in the W-shaped character (5th in line) necessary for the writing system? My intuition would be to flatten them into alignment or then dissimulate them further so it looks intentional.
  • Daniel Yacob
    Daniel Yacob Posts: 25
    Thank you @Christian Thalmann, that is a good observation.  The misalignment is an essential characteristic of the glyph (ሠ).  I think we should adjust it to have a tad more separation so as not to look like a near-miss, and be more obviously deliberate.

  • Daniel Yacob
    Daniel Yacob Posts: 25
    Thank you @Thomas Phinney, we'll tinker with thickness in a few cases to see how it goes.  Knowing now that this is done for Latin letters, we can feel comfortable about trying it with Ethiopic glyphs.

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