Caps added: http://freepdfhosting.com/a9ba7517b5.pdf

Most of these caps are copies of the Latin characters set - is this correct for Greek, or should any of the shapes/proportions be adjusted to work better with the Greek lower case?

If anyone could give me some feedback about these Greek characters, I'd really appreciate it. I'm in the process of creating small caps throughout the entire font, including polytonic Greek; I'd like to iron out any problems (particularly with my regular caps) before doing this.

I do not think that greek characters should dance tango on the page. Ancient greek inscriptional letters had very simple forms, similar to modern sans serif typefaces, before the roman alphabet even existed. Thus, I think it is a misconception that simple, rationalized forms are in any way unsuitable for a greek typeface.

I really like your greek characters, and they match the roman characters nicely. However, I would remove the little top-right loops on zeta and xi, I think they are too much. I would also try less curved kappa and lambda forms.

Most of these caps are copies of the Latin characters set - is this correct for Greek
Yes.

Hi Joshua, and thanks for your feedback.

I totally agree with you about the kappa and will change it. However, I'm less enthusiastic about changing the others at this time. The loops on the zeta and xi seem to me to be a very typical feature of both Greek handwriting and Greek fonts. These loops also tie in well with the loops I have on the beta, gamma, epsilon and omega. And, on the xi in particular, I can't help thinking the removal of the top loop will leave the middle loop looking a bit out of place.

As for the lambda, if anything, I was concerned mine wasn't curved enough.

None of this is to say I'm opposed to change, and I'd welcome your further thoughts on this.

Update - new lower case kappa and capital Upsilon.

http://freepdfhosting.com/87736ffda7.pdf

Great to see you're adding Greek! That loop on the bottom of /gamma is very ungainly, though. There's gotta be a better solution! Also, the /epsilon is leaning backwards.

Hi Christian... I wanted to incorporate the more scripty (is this even a word?) nature of Greek and originally had a small counter in the /gamma/ loop. But, I needed an electron microscope to discern it at anything below 20pt, so removed it. I didn't compensate enough and I agree that the resulting loop looked wrong. Good spot on the inebriated /epsilon/ too... both have been edited.

Better?

http://freepdfhosting.com/1eaa10ebda.pdf

Once I'm happy with the Greek, I'm going to move to Cyrillic... do you have any experience I can tap into? :)

I've tackled a couple of things that were bothering me.

The 'sober' /epsilon/ from my earlier update remains unchanged, but the revised /gamma/ has since been re-revised and is now harmonious with a similarly revised /nu/. Is it appropriate for these two letters to share the same structure?

Also, the /lambda/ has been made more upright (with a general shape also in keeping with the /gamma/ and /nu/), but the top more curved. This seems to me to be very much in keeping with Greek handwriting styles.

Finally, for now, I've experimented with a new form of /phi/. I saw this looped transition in a calligraphic font and thought something along those lines might complement the loops in some of my existing characters. Is it an acceptable form?

http://freepdfhosting.com/76846b4628.pdf

I've continued to work on the /gamma/, /lambda/ and /nu/; I've also reverted back to a more conventional /phi/. Here's the update, which also includes a variety of Latin words so you can get a sense of how the whole project is shaping up.

http://freepdfhosting.com/0c1fe771e5.pdf

Newer /phi is definitely better than the experimental one.

The /gamma feels a bit lopsided, how about moving the loop more to the right?

The /lambda looks a bit like Elvis in flared pants. Maybe you can counter that impression a bit by bowing the legs a bit towards the outside.

Why the "wrong" pen angle in /eta and in the middle of /Xi?

Could the bowl of /Phi be made bigger somehow? I believe the stem is often extended beyond the base-/cap-lines in the Cyrillic equivalent to make it fit in with the other caps optically.

How do you feel about trying out an "underscored O" approach to /Omega?

Thanks, Christian... I've straightened /gamma/ and partially de-Elvised /lambda/! :) Nice catch on the /eta/... I've corrected the stroke ending. The 'error' on the /xi/ (and also on the /kappa/), however, was deliberate. I didn't see a good way to have the NE/SW diagonal strokes agree with the pen without making them either very curly or very thin. I justify this by telling myself that Greek is full of these anomalies but, if you could suggest a workable solution, I'm more than happy to explore it.

http://freepdfhosting.com/79f4f73561.pdf

I have to step away for a while, but will take a look at the /Phi/ and /Omega/ later this afternoon. A quick question about the /Omega/... given it evolved by taking a chunk out of an /Omicrom/, is the underscored version considered appropriate?

Just a quick follow-up to my previous post...

Here's a sample showing my original /xi/. It's form is more 'conventional', but the strokes are out of character with the font. If it behaved according to the font's logic, The curly diagonal would be thick along its length, whilst the straighter diagonal would be as thin as the arm of the /gamma/ at its junction.

http://freepdfhosting.com/743d385ace.pdf

That aside, do you think this version works better?

Last revision for tonight. I've made a concerted effort to harmonise the shared characteristics of /gamma/, /lambda/, /nu/ and /xi/. There are changes to each.

http://freepdfhosting.com/3733f1d076.pdf

I really didn't expect to like the underscored /Omega/, but I think it works rather well! I've also modified the /Phi/ slightly.

http://freepdfhosting.com/5a75d6c96c.pdf

The loops on the zeta and xi seem to me to be a very typical feature of both Greek handwriting and Greek fonts. These loops also tie in well with the loops I have on the beta, gamma, epsilon and omega. And, on the xi in particular, I can't help thinking the removal of the top loop will leave the middle loop looking a bit out of place.
Maybe you could try to make those zeta and xi loops point to the right a little bit more horizontally (more like the xi middle loop). I think that would make them stick out less. That would mean that the slope of the top horizontal lines may need to change a bit, too.

As for the lambda, if anything, I was concerned mine wasn't curved enough.
The new version is much better in my eyes, with only the top part curved to the outside.

Regarding the Omega, I prefer the previous version. The underbar version may be a candidate for a stylistic alternate.

Hi Joshua... thanks again for your feedback.

I've tried to change the loops as you've suggested, whilst trying to minimise the impact on the horizontal lines. Does this look better to you?

http://freepdfhosting.com/e7fc2f0755.pdf

I haven't reverted to the original /Omega/ yet. I probably will do as you suggested and make it an alternate, but I'm going to dwell on it a little while longer.

Joshua - I wasn't happy with the way I hacked away at the loop of the /zeta/, so I spent some time experimenting with different ideas. This is my favourite.

http://freepdfhosting.com/d0f8bddcaa.pdf

I've curved the top bars of the /zeta/ and /ksi/, so that they rise above the loops. Although the loops are still quite prominent, they seem to me to be part of the flow now rather than an aberration.

What do you think?

Apart from (probably) reverting to the more conventional /Omega/, this is my proposed final Greek alphabet. There are a couple of minor tweaks here and there, but the only notable change from my last update is a revision to the /ksi/.

http://freepdfhosting.com/8c65613ac6.pdf

I'm really keen to hear from anyone who spots any errors and/or areas in need of improvement.

Yes, I think the new zeta and xi drawings are better. But have you made them different by intention? In my opinion they should match. I actually think the zeta in your last example looks better than the xi, maybe because the top left and top right parts optically balance each other out.

Hi Joshua... despite saying the version I posted on the 3rd was my last, I continued work on the Greek over the past couple of days, in part because, like you, I felt there were unresolved issues with the /zeta/ and /ksi/ and also the /gamma/.

I've made a number of changes, including harmonizing the /zeta/ and /ksi/. You might also spot changes to the /alpha/, /gamma/, /eta/, /theta/ (do you think this form works?), /mu/, /pi/ and /upsilon/.

http://freepdfhosting.com/862aeb8669.pdf

Steve, how about making the underline of /Omega slightly shorter rather than slightly longer than the oval?

If you're interested in discretionary ligatures, there's an /Omikron_Upsilon ligature that's sometimes used in all-caps. It looks like an /O with antelope horns, sometimes with an open counter. This is a rather ugly implementation of it:

http://kodeks.uni-bamberg.de/Bilder/Papadopoulou1.jpg

...but it has the added benefit of a hilarious transcription of "Petit Beurre". :D

Maybe this one is better:

http://www.tlg.uci.edu/~opoudjis/unicode/politirion.jpg

Hi Christian... I'll experiment with the line length.

I really like the underlined /Omega/ even though, outside of handwritten text, the 'open /Omicrom/' style is much more prevalent - in fact, I couldn't find a single example of the underlined /Omega/ on fileformat:

http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/03a9/fontsupport.htm

I suspect I'm going to ultimately have to offer the underlined form as an alt, but I'd love to be persuaded otherwise! :)

As for ligatures, I've been debating what to do about them. I was researching the subject a few days ago and came across an interesting article by William H Ingram. It includes a great many historical ligature forms, some of which are quite extraordinary. Check out, for example, the ligatures for 'υπερσυντελικος' and 'παρακειμενος' at the top of page 3 (which is numbered 373 in the document)!

Obviously, very few of these are appropriate for this font, but I think it would be interesting to include them as part of a handwritten font project.

http://grbs.library.duke.edu/article/viewFile/11391/4169

By the way, the latest version of the Greek character set looks like this:

http://freepdfhosting.com/aefa00bd4d.pdf