Typophile

Best place to set anchors

Maarten Renckens

I'm currently experimenting with the best position to set anchors in an OpenType font.

Now, when I ask the app Glyphs to place my anchors, it takes the width of the total letter, and set the anchor in the middle of the width.
And it does the same for the punctuation.

But when the punctuation (automatically) is merged on the letter, this default behaviour does not always result in the best combination: some punctuation has to shift to the left, other to the right.

Are there some guidelines for the best placing of the anchors or is it totally up to the taste of the designer? (Read; the designers eye...)

George Thomas

Here is a good place to start:

http://diacritics.typo.cz/index.php?id=1
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caron

Maarten Renckens

Thanks.
Although it was not my question how to design punctuation (my question was technically: where to place anchors), I think I can find a system with these examples...

Pablo Impallari

Now, when I ask the app Glyphs to place my anchors, it takes the width of the total letter, and set the anchor in the middle of the width.
And it does the same for the punctuation.

You are supposed to move the anchors along the Y axis to their correct position (ie: optically centered)

Jan Żurawski

Pablo, I suppose you meant X axis. Good examples of mark and mkmk are in SourceSans font (Paul D. Hunt, Adobe).

Craig Eliason

In Glyphs you can also select two points plus the anchor and hit Align Selection (Cmd-Shift-A), and your anchor will be centered horizontally between them.

Pablo Impallari

Yes, X axis
Thanks JanekZ

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