A Type Designer's Journal

Musings and resources related to type design

Diacritics: All You Need to [Know]

Dest-dest

I have a link to this site in an earlier post about diacritics, but I just noticed that the article seems to have been updated and now has more illustrations. It looks so much nicer and is such an important resource, that I decided to give it its own post.

I can't overemphasize how important it is to carefully design diacritics, especially for those of us who are not accustomed to them in our native languages. Stop and ask yourself how you would feel about a carelessly designed letter or symbol that you use often; you would probably avoid such a font. So, my attitude now is: if I'm not willing to take the time to design a glyph with as much care as I would design an "A", for example, then it might be better to leave it out of my character set altogether. Anyway, this series of articles is an excellent resource, and a must-read for any type designer who is extending a font to include extended language support.

Diacritics: All You Need to Know to Design a Font with Correct Accents: http://diacritics.typo.cz/

On Diacritics by David Březina

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via ilovetypography.com

A great article by type designer and typographer, David Březina, on the proper placement of diacritics for Central and Eastern European languages. My only disagreement is the example with the placement of the circumflex over lowercase 'h' for Esperanto. I've been studying Esperanto off and on ever since I was 14, and placing the circumflex over the stem of the 'h' would look very wrong to me; it should be centered over the body of the 'h' as illustrated as the incorrect way (if I'm understanding it correctly). Otherwise, an excellent article. Be sure to read Adam Twardoch's comments to this article, and his own article on Polish diacritics. Adam is one of the leading experts in this area. An even more exhaustive guide for diacritics, Diacritics: All you need to design a font with correct accents, includes all of the above as well as Vietnamese, Greek, and Sanskrit diacritics. Thanks, Sergiy, for the links!

Polish Diacritics by Adam Twardoch

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via twardoch.com

What's the difference between a kreska and a kropka, or between a kreska and an acute? Where exactly should the ogonek be placed and how low should it go? (And what the heck is an ogonek, for that matter?!) How far up should the stroke be placed on L-slash and at what angle? If you are not too sure (or don't have a clue), then you might want to read this article by the authority on Polish type design, Adam Twardoch.

Adam gave me some useful feedback awhile ago on my poorly designed Polish diacritics for a particular typeface. I implemented his suggestions for that font, but I think I've become careless again. I need to review this article and start being more careful about how I design these characters. But then, there is the question of priorities; I am a one-man type foundry, so I don't have unlimited time to devote to a design that might not even sell. So, I have to ask myself, how many potential customers will be using my fonts for Polish? On the other hand, if I'm going to add a character to a font, I should design it as well as I can; otherwise, it might be better to leave it out altogether. At least that's my thinking at the moment. What do you think?

Thanks to my friend and fellow type designer, Sergiy Tkachenko, for pointing me to this article, which he found on the LiveJournal blog (in Russian).