Typophile

bold sans serifs: gentler diagonals than their regular and light counterparts?

Double Elephant

Is there any research covering the deliberate lessening of the angle of some diagonals as the weights of characters increase in typeface families? Oblique and upright - throughout weights and styles?

It appears that diagonal angles, for example of the 4 and the flag of 1, in upright character sets, become more gradual (less steep) in pitch as they increase in weight. I understand that these design decisions are often required to avoid the massing of weight as stroke thickness increases... but has anyone discussed this (in published works) and is there a precedent set?

My observations are mostly based on Geometric sans serifs but also sans in general!

Riccardo Sartori

I never noticed it, but it’s most likely related to the horizontal widening of the glyphs.

Double Elephant

But the increase of weight (and the proportional system that widely dictates the process of weighting type families) uses the middle of strokes as a central axis for widening, ie glyphs are not technically widened, they are thickened and therefore widen as a result. This doesn't explain a change in angle... That would only occur with stretching, with a falsely emboldened character (MS Word etc) or an expanded version - surely it's an adjustment made outside/beyond/after the proportional system due to optical issues?

Martin Silvertant

I actually observed the opposite recently. I designed a typeface which is essentially Helvetica Ultra Black and in order to keep the counters as big as possible, sometimes you have to expand the design.

Helvetica Roman/Helvetica Black/Zwartika Regular:

Riccardo Sartori

glyphs are not technically widened, they are thickened and therefore widen as a result. This doesn't explain a change in angle... That would only occur with stretching, with a falsely emboldened character

Faux bold don’t change the angle, because it’s evenly applied horizontally.
As Martin shows, the angle is changed in relation to the counters, and in relation to constrains like x/caps height (think of |z| and |Z|).

Nick Shinn

I do what I can to keep the counter a decent size.
I don’t think a character should be slavishly similar throughout the weights of a typeface.
Mechanical interpolation suggest more of a formal relationship than is necessary.

Martin Silvertant

By the way, I recently noticed a typeface where the bolder the weight is, the larger the x-height. When is this appropriate to do?

Nick Shinn

http://typophile.com/node/65057

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