A 17th-century font in a 21st-century thesis
linyangchen.com
linyangchen.com
My next step is to add those little padded areas hiding the empty spaces on the right side of the text[1][2], so the column of the text feels neater (horror vacui was a big thing then it seems).
Weirdly enough, this gets much easier with container queries and stable diffusion:
1. feed SD with some examples of patterns, then scale them to 10 or so sizes
2. then use those images as backgrounds for elements fitting the empty space in each line
3. select the right image using a container query
This should give them a neat but organic look. And hey I can brag about not using any JS!
[1] https://i.pinimg.com/originals/2f/46/2d/2f462df256f4bd509b48... [2] https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ac/68/a8/ac68a86da5ec457960d0...
Something tells me you might like Inkulinati: https://store.steampowered.com/app/957960/Inkulinati/
I think the IPA one is /rafaw pastuʂak/ (note: /ʂ/ is very similar to /ʃ/).
See https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ucs/quotes.html ("Summary: Please do not use the ASCII grave accent (0x60) as a left quotation mark together with the ASCII apostrophe (0x27) as the corresponding right quotation mark (as in `quote').")
Also, Founder's Caslon is commercially available, at least, it is now. https://www.myfonts.com/collections/founders-caslon-font-itc
Funnily enough, I picked up the habit of using graves for my opening quotes from working with old Unix software like ELisp without any context. I think it's a fine practice, particularly when used as markup that's transformed into curly-quotes on the user-faceing side, and it's even seeped into my handwriting as exaggerated opening quotes. I'll still draw nice curly quotes or mirrored ticks when writing neatly, but for sloppy writing and markdown alike, I find the clear distinction between opening and closing delimiters to be more readable than using just single quotes. On this, reasonable minds may differ c:
Thanks for sharing!
The correct characters to use are ‘/“ and ’/”. There is a clear distinction between opening and closing delimiters. I think you're falling for a false dilemma brought on by outdated software that is limited to ASCII (i.e., stuck in the 1960s).
The italics on the page are also missing, for me at least. I am seeing them as obliques. The upright roman face is tilted, rather than using the separate set of italic glyphs. Some systems do this if the italic glyphs can't be found or something is misconfigured.
Ya think?
You can play with the sliders and it is easy to get the same spacing effect as what the article talks about.
Copyright protects all creative works, with very few exceptions. Whether or not a font is a computer program has absolutely nothing to do with whether it is eligible for copyright protection.
Even if the font was just "a collection of little pictures" (that is, a bitmap font), it would still fall under copyright protection, unless the pictures were all in the public domain already, or some other special circumstances apply (e.g. creative threshold not met, created by the government, etc.).
The digital workaround is to have bytecode in font files that is copyrightable.
Does that mean that if you take a commercial font file and strip the bytecode, retaining only the glyph shapes, you can do as you wish with the result? And does that mean all bitmap fonts are actually public domain in the US?
(other than rasterizing text with it, at which point the output is not a “font” in the sense we usually mean when we use that term.)
Also, good luck even making a free font without being accused of making a “derivative work” of every copyright-encumbered font that’s come before. (“look at those serifs!”)
I know I started the thread by saying I think fonts deserve copyright, and I do, but not the typefaces themselves, as that would drastically disrupt what you can create. It would be especially arbitrary considering most faces are derivative of what came before, stretching back centuries. To paraphrase a famous quote, “You didn’t build that, [Adobe]”
So similar to those other things you can find a free or cheap generic off-the-shelf one that suits your use, open source fonts exist. Or you can pay for a specific one that suits it better.
Font design is a domain several times older than the oldest reasonable precursor to computers. It's imo shitty to stomp in and demand it conform to our idea of how licensing should work.
Yeah again I can download about a few hundred thousand open source tools like ffmpeg, git, Linux, Chromium, web servers, databases, queues, web libs, etc and almost always the best stuff is open source. Almost never is there some kind of per user fee just for copying code, and if it is, almost nobody is using it.
It's not shitty for me to call out greedy excessive licensing practices.
A font is much more similar to a completed web app than it is to the tools used to create that app. You don't expect someone to make an app for you for free, even if there are apps available for your use for free. Same thing here.
Typographers aren't getting rich lmao. They're trying to pay the rent with their skills same as everyone.
One-time purchase from fonts dot com. Yes, it was still scaled based on monthly impressions, but at least you could pay and use it forever.
The other thing I found was that, on the corporate scale, Adobe Fonts (aka Typekit) is a bargain. Basically an unlimited web and app license for everything.
Is there a way to specify something like that in the font language? Or does the rasterization engine have to implement that?
on edit: asking as you probably have in depth technical knowledge on this it would be nice to get some pointers on.
Not a big typography expert, but one font I like and try to use often, is Baskerville.
On the other hand, while I love LaTeX, I absolutely abhor Computer Modern. Maybe it's not the font's fault, but rather the fact that by using it every paper ends up looking the same - but it just bores me to death.
I do like Baskerville, but I am a little sad that the only open source version I know of, Libre Baskerville, changes the design so much for the screen. Caslon is in the same boat.
Good, because from a technical perspective, you don't need to. The legibility argument has been less and less relevant as screen resolutions have gotten good enough to display serifs in a reasonably print-like manner. (Which was arguably around 2010–2014 when Apple normalized “Retina” displays above 200 dpi, but is especially true today, now that the majority of web browsing occurs on mobile devices).
What makes the difference is of course the cultural and branding associations with serif typefaces. But actually thinking about it now, I feel like I've been seeing a lot more serif typography on the web recently, even in modern, tech-related contexts. And looking at the big example of theverge.com with its quirky redesign, I think you might just get your renaissance soon :)
(Related: http://alexpoole.info/blog/which-are-more-legible-serif-or-s...)
Its continued usage is a crime given how good Latex’s typesetting is.
Frankly, I’m not a huge fan of its stale "Didone" style either. It’s a style that does better in advertising or magazine covers than for reading.
There was a typography trend in the late 90s, 2000s, and you still see echoes of it, towards "mathematical," "geometric" design in fonts. Eg using exactly the same curves, exactly the same bowl size and proportion, exactly the same serif etc across all characters. Now this is mostly regarded as a dead end. The text ends up feeling inhuman or bland, and the readability gains are at best negligible but often simply worse. It seems that the small inconsistencies aid quick character identification, if not too distracting.
Right now the trend is more towards specific, intentionally introduced inconsistency. Most of them are too subtle to notice unless you're specifically studying the font, but ideally in aggregate they give it a certain organic feel and differentiate similar shapes used in different characters.
(I’m also writing a book, and typeface distraction obviously comes with the territory.)
I did hear orchestras play out of tune occasionally, but it has never been an agreeable experience. It never made me think "how human". Instead, hearing a botched entry in the chorale in Mendelssohn 5 helped me understand the brass players' addiction to beta blockers.
On the contrary: they never play in tune. They are consistently 12 cents sharp!
(They play A=443, when most of the world uses A=440. Joking not joking.)
Thesis does read very nicely and the quotes (see example in references) are converted to expected double quote pair.
If it's an exacting replica of a preexisting typeface it shouldn't be covered under copyright and thus you should be able to freely share it.
[0] https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ33.pdf "Works Not Protected by Copyright" page 3, section 2 ; though, it does call out limited protections for heavily ornamented calligraphy and the like
[1] https://www.copyright.gov/comp3/chap900/ch900-visual-art.pdf "Visual Art Works" page 13 paragraph 6
But with the microtype package it is acceptable to slightly expand or contract the letters to avoid hyphenation. Typically the limit is set to around 0.025em.
Anecdotally if you are applying letterspacing to uppercase letters, 0.025em is also a good default value to use.
That link got Google-holed, but I think it's the same content as this one (?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zkklz0Vird4 ("Edward Elgar's Enigma Variations | BBC Symphony Orchestra, Leonard Bernstein") (1984? or 1982?)
(Or it might have referenced a specific passage of that recording, but I can't easily figure out which).
Ah so this is THE Dr Fell from an old remembered nursery rhyme
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_do_not_like_thee,_Doctor_Fel...
:)
I didn't see a link to his final adjusted font, though?
How does it look on a Mac monitor?
How does it look on windows?
Something about taking a screenshot on a scaled display makes my first image (at 125% scaling) look bigger than it should be; at 80% magnification it looks about the same size as it does in my browser, so edges may not come across quite right. (100/125 = 0.8, so that’s probably not a coincidence.)
I set scaling to 100% for the second image, and that one looks true to life size, so it’s probably the better reference.
Edit: On comparison, it’s not the serifs. Maybe it’s the lighter overall color on the page, or maybe it’s the way that autohinting exaggerates the contrast between thick and thin strokes.
Does anyone know the best way to convert an old printed manuscript into a font file?
Become frustrated that in eighteen pages, there are no examples of [#%|\=÷×{}!*/] or a capital X or Z or five digits. Find substitutes.
Use FontForge. Read the whole FAQ.
TL;DR: No.
The long-standing debate over serif versus sans-serif for readability is likely less important than we thought. Other factors, like the height of the letter or spacing between them, change how easy a text is to read more than the presence or absence of serifs.
But for the eligibility, I find old typesets like these Fell fonts harder to read.
> ``. . . anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment." -- Robert Benchley, in Chips off the Old Benchley, 1949
Wonderful!