Gidole
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larsenwork
Cyrillic support
Hi! Your font is great! I can read and write russian and have a basic sense for typography, but I haven't ever created or edited fonts. If you are still interested, write me!
@Larraby sounds great, I added cyrillic to monoid a while ago: https://github.com/andreaslarsen/monoid/issues/7
I'm a bit busy right now but might take you op on it later :smile:
@Larraby hi, I'm getting started on the cyrillics and could use some input.
- I've seen quite a few variations of
cyrillic small letter ef- which style do you think would suite Gidole best? - I really like PT Sans and have been told it's also pretty in cyrillic - anything about PT Sans I should avoid "copying" ?
https://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/PT+Sans
About the ef:
Some look like bdpq "combined"
Some look like a wide o| "combined"
Is the "O" part of the YU usually just as wide as an "O" or should it be narrower/wider?
Great work! Sorry, haven't seen the question( I've got a cyrrilic version of DIN itself, in case it can help
@larsenwork regarding the letter yu, see the image below. I overlaid the O on Ю to show the difference in shapes. PT Sans and Permian Sans are typefaces of Russian origin.
As you can see DIN and Permian Sans have identical ovals while the other two differ slightly. I feel like using the exact same oval would probably be the most appropriate for a DIN-like face with low stroke contrast.
I also noticed that the diagonal stroke of the uppercase K attaches to the vertical stem quite low. For some reason, the Russian version of DIN has a completely differently shaped K. See the image below.
I looked at a bunch of Russian-designed typefaces and very few of them seem to feature that kind of diagonal stroke on their K's. Notable exception is Futura by Paratype but the stroke doesn't attach as low.
@larsenwork on another note, a Russian design studio released checkmark glyphs for many fonts (including DIN) that can be used for free in any project. You can see them at http://artgorbunov.ru/en/projects/galochki/. Not many fonts come with a good matching checkmark glyph so it would be nice to see a proper checkmark glyph.
@bolatovumar thank you very much for the insights - very much appreciated. I will comment on them in detail shortly :+1:
Checkmark request added to https://github.com/larsenwork/Gidole/issues/33#issue-123875208
Will be easy to add. We should maybe think of other dingbats while we're at it.
As you can see I have taken a similar approach to YU as PT Sans making it a bit narrower compared to O.
I haven't designed KA yet (currently just a copy of western K as you've noticed). I would again be inclined to do something similar to PT Sans (Fira looks a bit too close to H, or is that just me?
I would be very grateful if you wanted to do a similar comparison and comments on letters (capital + lower case) Д Ж З Л У and (lower case) б.
I plan on creating an alternative number 3 for when cyrillic language is detected so that 3 and З is easier to tell apart.
You can see we already discussed some of the letters when designing Monoid: https://github.com/larsenwork/monoid/issues/7
@larsenwork, click on each image too see a high resolution version. The thin red line represents a baseline.
As you can see all of these glyphs are pretty similar-looking. Fira's curved stroke thins out significantly when connecting to the base for some unknown reason. The curve itself also looks weird. The angle of it sort of changes half-way through but only barely.
"Ж" is built like two "К" shapes joined together and slightly modified to make them narrower.
Here I overlaid the "К" and "Ж" glyphs from PT Sans to demonstrate the difference.
PT Sans differentiates between "З" and "3" pretty well. I'm not sure why other fonts don't employ the same technique. It may be because digits and letters most often occur in different contexts so chances of someone confusing them for one another are low. Idk.
Again, the letterforms a pretty similar here as in "Д". One noticeable thing here is that all fonts with the exception of DIN drop the curved end of the letter slightly below the baseline.
I believe it is preferable to complete the curved end so it turns horizontal as done in DIN and PT Sans.
As is the case for "Л", all but DIN drop the curved end of the capital letter slightly below the baseline.
Comparison of uppercase "У" to uppercase "Y". All fonts use the exact same lowercase "у" as lowercase Latin "y".
Cyrillic "б" is interesting (image shows "б" next to a glyph for the digit "6"). I found an article on construction of this letterform here — http://typejournal.ru/articles/Cyrillic-Be-Vision. It's in Russian so here is a short translation (refer to the image galleries in the article as needed):
There are three ways to construct a "б" (refer to the second image in the article): a. Add an ascender to "o" (like in Filosofia) b. Branch/ascender is an extension of the left stem to which the right side of the glyph (the oval) is attached (like in Greta Text) c. Same as variant b but the oval connects to the stem in a free-flowing manner (like in Didona)
It's best to make sure that the method of connecting the bowl to the stem matches the connection type of other letters (like Cyrillic "р" or Latin "n") (first image gallery. Refer to the second image gallery for the "wrong" way of doing it).
When it matches the style of the typeface, it is recommended to have the ascender point upwards and not turn into a horizontal line (like in Officina Sans).
It can also be simplified and geometric as Brutal Type.
If your typeface has a really large x-height and there is very little whitespace between the bowl and the ascender as a result, make the bowl smaller so the whitespace is distributed more evenly (examples used are Fedra Sans vs. Rostislav) (last image in the article).
Here you can see the construction of "б" as compared to "о".
For additional information take a look at these suggestions by Ilya Ruderman for Google's Product Sans — https://www.behance.net/gallery/29223641/How-to-improve-Cyrillic-in-new-Googles-typeface. Ilya is one of the best-known Russian type designers, founder of CSTM Fonts and the person who makes Cyrillic versions of Commercial Type fonts
You can get the higher resolution version of the same image here — http://tinyurl.com/oewcvp7.
For an example of a geometric font with good Cyrillic see Futura by Paratype — http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/paratype/futura-book/ (Cyrillic letters designed by the same person who designed PT Sans).
Also take a look at Typonine Sans, the Cyrillic version of which was designed by Ilya Ruderman — http://www.typonine.com/fonts/font-library/typonine-sans/.
@bolatovumar thank you very much for the lesson + inspiration. I have added some more and adjusted quite a few (lo res only) - will upload a ttf as soon as I have drafted all cyrillic glyps
A few close ups - unsure if ф is maybe a bit too wide but I guess it's easier to see when all the glypghs are done a we can start writing words
@larsenwork ParaType has also released their own version of DIN just ten days ago (and I just found out about it). You can take a look at it here https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/paratype/din-2014/
Notably, the Latin and Cyrillic versions of K differ significantly in that font.
Not sure I'm liking that uppercase K - but I've already tweaked the lowercase k to have less vertical symmetry so I might do something similar to the uppercase K (basically a version that is a "mix" of the DIN shown + current K)
This is current Gidole
First draft of all lowercase done:
I was inspired by the "б" in the DIN you posted but I felt look a bit too stiff - as you can see with the latin letters Gidole is in no ways meant as a DIN clone but as a more "friendly" and less grotesque interpretation.
Here's the updated ttf (note that I haven't done any systematic spacing and no kerning at all)
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3019777/Gidole-Regular.ttf
@larsenwork I did notice that Gidole is a friendlier version of DIN, more akin to DIN Next in that respect
@larsenwork on the first glance on the lowercase shapes I noticed that the lower bowl of the lowercase "в" seems to be almost the same width as the upper bowl. That seemed a bit off to me, so I made another comparison image.
Here you can see that all example fonts with the notable exception of DIN make their lowercase "в"'s lower bowl somewhat wider than the upper one. PT DIN 2014 does so as well.
Another thing I noticed is that the Cyrillic "Я" seems to be just a mirror image of the Latin "R". It seems logical to construct them that way, but the Cyrillic "Я" is actually a slightly different shape. I overlaid a mirrored version of the Cyrillic "Я" (in red) on top of the Latin "R" to show the difference.
Fantastic useful feedback as always!
I've "pulled" a bit in the в but deliberately not quite as much as in the example as I think it looses the geometric feel
Not sure if it should be pulled down even further as the bowl of the latin R is taller than other DINs
Unsure the end of Ђ should go a bit up instead of flattening out - i.e. similar to how I've drawn the ß
@larsenwork yeah, I see what you mean about the "Я". Hard to say if anything needs to be adjusted there as the general rule seems to be to make the bowl larger and kick out the diagonal stroke a bit, but Gidole's R bowl is already quite large.
@larsenwork I'm not entirely sure about "Ђ" since it's a Serbian character and I'm not familiar with it (I speak Russia, we have the sound that "Ђ" represents but not the letter).
However, I looked at some fonts by notable Russian and ex-USSR designers from the past two years and they all seem to connect the oval part to the stem in a gentler manner rather than just flat.
Take a look here
- http://brownfox.org/ru/files/2014/02/cyr_2.pdf
- http://brownfox.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/gerbera_specimen.pdf
- http://www.paratype.ru/pstore/fonts/Stem.htm
- http://fonts.ru/pstore/fonts/Journal-Sans-New.htm
- https://yurigordon.com/en/shop/fonts/20kopeek
All of the above fonts were named best new fonts of 2014 by typejournal.ru so that's why I picked them as examples.
@larsenwork from what I see, making the bowl of ь be approximately the same width but slightly taller as compared to the lower bowl of в seems to be the way to go
@larsenwork from looking at different examples of Ђ I get the sense that the upper end of the bowl also needs to curve in a bit when it connects to the stem if the lower end curves in. The only fonts that have both ends completely flat seem to be the extremely geometric ones.
@Larraby @bolatovumar I've updated https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3019777/Gidole-Regular.ttf so you can maybe try it on some text/words. Mind you that I haven't done any spacing + kerning yet.
So it's more to get a general feel of the typeface and see if any glyphs looks odd or out of place in terms of style and proportions
@larsenwork here are some pangrams for comparison. I think Gidole looks quite nice here.
A couple of things that I noticed.
-
Lowercase з looks a bit off.
- I feel like the ends need to curve in a bit more. The glyph feels a bit too open.
- I also think there needs to be more contrast in stroke width between the vertical and horizontal parts of the curves.
- Having the lower bowl be somewhat more noticeably larger would also help, I think.
- It also feels like the horizontal stroke in the center extends a bit too far out.
-
Lowecase л is very narrow. It's very noticeable when looking at text with many лs (below).
л comparison
I will do some more testing of this kind later.
Do you need more help for the Cyrillic? I see that Cyrillic glyphs are included in Gidole-Regular.sfdir but can't see .ttf or .otf issue with them? I also suggest my help for including in Gidole the modern form of Bulgarian Cyrillic as localBGR. Serbian and Macedonian glyphs I suggest to be included through Style Set options. It's the better way for these two forms of Cyrillic.
Is it still being worked on or was cyrillic abandoned for now? I really love your font and the way it looks in cyrillic and can't wait to see the final product!
There hasn't been any activity for a long time as far as I know.
On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 12:21 AM, Nakouthin [email protected] wrote:
Is it still being worked on or was cyrillic abandoned for now? I really love your font and the way it looks in cyrillic and can't wait to see the final product!
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