Curve compensation
Letterforms
TYPE
DESIGN
Design
notes
Basics
Decisions
Modules
Bold
Italic
x-height
Stems
Curves
Scans
Spacing
Elbow
grease
Glossary
Slanting a curve bends it out of shape. On the left
side the bulge lands too low and too high on the right. Here
are three examples of the same letter.
The first of the italic letters slants 7.5 degrees,
the second 12.5 degrees, and the three 17.5 degrees. The
greater the slant, the higher the bend is on the curve.
The curves of these three slanted letters have been
adjusted, and look all the better for it. The bend of the
curve is lower. Here’s one way of mending a 12.5-degree
slant.
You start with an upright letter.
1. Slant it 12.5 degrees. The points on the sides
will no longer be on the outemost edges of the curves.
2. Add new extrema points. This gives you two
sets of points close to each other.
3. You won’t need the tilting extreme points
you had at in the beginning. Remove them. No doubt you
notice that the remaining points on either side are too low
and too high. We’ll come back to them in a
moment.
Start again with another upright letter.
1. Slant it 6.25 degrees, half of the
12.5-degrees you’re working on.
2. Rotate it 6.25 degrees, the other half of the
full slant.
3. Add new extrema points. We need the
coordinates.
1. Take the height coordinates of the new
extrema points of the letter that we both tilted and
rotated.
2. Then fetch the letter that we slanted 12.5
degrees and gave new extremas.
3. Slide the points of the new extremas to match
the height coordinates. It’s a piece of cake. Really.
But if you slant a lot, such as the 17.5 degrees we looked
at, you may have to make final adjustments of the curve by
eye.
Curve compensation is less work than you think. Once
you’ve done the letter O, you’ve got the letters C
D G Q as well. Mend the letter P, and you’ve got the
letters B R.
