RE: The glyph of the CAPITAL SHARP S

From: Philippe Verdy (verdy_p@wanadoo.fr)
Date: Wed May 09 2007 - 23:17:57 CDT

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    You may note another pair of suggested glyphs for the capital esszett on:
    http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Big-esszett.png
    they are shown with other related uppercase letters.

    I tried to do something with the left part of F, but when reduced at small
    size, it was too much confusable with a simple I before another capital.

    There's then the proposal based on letter B, but with the left part based on
    the arc of a turned U, the right part is most like a yogh, but then this is
    not very satisfying, as it looks to much like the lowercase esszett. Anyway,
    its blackness is correct.

    I tried chaging the yogh-like top of the left part looking like the top of
    an esh, but then the character became really too black face to other
    capitals.

    My preference for readability abandons the esh and yogh, and adops the
    capital S as the form for the right part. But to make it more distinctable
    from a true S, it is absolutely necessary to cut a significant part of the
    top arm.

    So finally my own preference, for readability (in modern fonts like Times,
    Helvetica, Arial, Courier) is the one on the second line (you'll note that I
    kept the proportions of the S, just narrowing it a little, so that the new
    ligature doesnot exhibit an excessive width.

    The test word in the first two lines was FU[SS]BALL because it contains
    related letters and I wanted to test readability). It's notable that the
    second line has a good proximity with the current normative capitalization
    for German, so it offers a smooth transition for non-experts.

    The third line is just there to compare related letters side-by-side
    (notably the letters S and U, and the turned U, to show how the glyphs are
    related and proportioned).

    I see that your own experiments, Michael, are also going this way too...

    Note that this is a test with serifs and variable stroke width, the case
    where it is more difficult to find a good compromise for both readability
    and for keeping blackness stable in a font; I also wanted to avoid the
    creation of an artificial x-height alignment with other lowercase letters,
    that's why it was chosen to make BOTH the left and right part of the glyph
    based on the same M-height, something necessary for Latin capitals...

    Philippe.

    > -----Message d'origine-----
    > De : unicode-bounce@unicode.org [mailto:unicode-bounce@unicode.org] De la
    > part de Michael Everson
    > Envoyé : mercredi 9 mai 2007 23:16
    > À : Unicode Discussion
    > Objet : The glyph of the CAPITAL SHARP S
    >
    > In order to get meaningful discussion ONLY about the glyph, I have
    > begun a new thread. Please stay on-topic lest we incur the wrath of
    > Sarasvati.
    >
    > Thank you.
    >
    > Sorry I didn't number yesterday's examples, but today's examples are
    > numbered for easier commenting.
    >
    > At 14:01 -0700 2007-05-09, Murray Sargent wrote:
    >
    > >I like your 3a glyph. Elegant and meaningful. 2a is good too, but
    > >changing the S lower termination emphasizes the transition to upper
    > >case.
    > >
    > >Murray
    > >
    > >-----Original Message-----
    > >From: unicode-bounce@unicode.org [mailto:unicode-bounce@unicode.org]
    > >On Behalf Of Michael Everson
    > >Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2007 1:25 PM
    > >To: Unicode Discussion
    > >
    > >http://www.evertype.com/standards/iso10646/pdf/massemasze.png
    > >
    > >http://www.evertype.com/standards/iso10646/pdf/maszstab.png
    >
    > --
    > Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com
    >
    >
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