Is there a rule-of-thumb for how much to stretch variants of a typeface? For example, if it's 75% as wide, is that condensed or ultra condensed? Or is it all simply relative to my own designs?
Typophile
expanded and condensed
75% would be typical for most regular condensed fonts.
No rule of thumb that I know.
When I condense a font I would usually use 80% as my simple condensed. It's interesting to note that FontLab uses 80% as the default change in width in its action menu, but does not give it a name. BTW 75% also is OK to call condensed without any qualifiers.
Don
Microsoft, it seems, goes with the following:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/Apps/windows.ui.text.fon...
Isn't everything in the UI micromanaged anyway, whatever system you're on?
Happened to be rummaging around the OT tags registry tonight and found these very same width values in a document on the 'OS/2' metrics table. Guess they are a sort-of consensus now...
http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/opentype/index_os2.html
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/otspec/os2.htm
Thanks. So width condensed to 80% needs a different term. What could that possibly be? Demi-condensed?
Don
I'd guess 80% is close enough to 75% that you could get away with calling it 'condensed', especially if you're targetting print rather than screen.
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So Microsoft=micromanage :)
Don