If you understand the so-called rules or what is expected and can break away from that and it still works you should go for it. Personally, I'd say try it and ask what others think.

I sure expect them to follow that pattern, just as I expect the lowercase f and el to have ascenders, and p and q to have descenders. You can do whatever you want, of course, but you are turning your work into a weird display face instead of a text face. I would also expect this to accompany other "out there" design choices; if it were the only unusual element of the design, it would seem out of place.

Cheers,

T

Assuming calligraphy as the spring of typography, in old-style typefaces (used as fonts) text figures are usually the same height as a lowercase x, they are not capitals, nor uncial, they are 'minuscule'. The ductus is the number, direction and sequence of the strokes that makes up a character. These days, some typefaces intended for text even make old-style figures the default numerals. FontShop, for example, usually makes old-style figures the default; Adobe doesn't. But it can vary from font to font.

I have a number of 19th century French type samples where the 3, 5, 6, and 8 are ascending forms, and only 4, 7, and 9 descend.

Whatever you do needs to read to the intended audience without needing hesitation to try to figure out what is going on.

ChrisL

Let me just add, so people don't think I'm flying high, that I would more than likely side with what Thomas has said. I also agree very much with what Chris has just said.

I do think that, as James' posting indicates, the shapes of the numbers are not as settled those as of the roman letters. And so the designer has a little more latitude with them.

In Paul Shaw's 'letter tour' of lower Manhattan that I went on a month ago we saw a lot of stone carved letters where eg, 1931 had only the 9 descending, not the 3. There were a number like this, with other letters same height on the top and the 9 descending. They were perfectly readable and didn't look odd; in fact many were quite nice.

Obviously a lot has to do with context. If you have an old style font, not following the convention for text figures is going to look out of place. But eg in an address or date or more modern face variations may look good.

check out the 'french oldstyle' or 'fournier' numerals in LTC Bodoni Bold

In lettering, the ascender/descender line for numbers has always been more flexible, in my opinion. Here is a small project I worked on a while back – http://www.typeoff.de/?p=72

Hmmm. Maybe I am being too conservative, or haven't seen enough divergent exemplars. I think that how the intended audience sees it (or preferably, doesn't notice it) is the ultimate arbiter.

Cheers,

T

This is great feedback. Several voices gives a far richer impression than one could. Phinney's blog is great example of thoughtful passion for a field without zealotry, and I'veenjoyed it for a while. The traditionalist view, in this case is important to me to understand.

Anyone here who is inclinded to care knows that my most traditional fonts are pretty 'out there'; most are far past that. Nevertheless, I try to borrow legibilty and other tricks from the classical camp, so that the fonts can offer more utility than most display styles.

In this case, I'm working on a postmodern tall rectangular face with just enough ornamentation to seem... retro? It's a gift for my wife. Line figures were boring, text figures seem to both read better and add to the plyfulness intended. So, I've arranged the letters into the traditional lining, then fiddled with it very slightly. The current arangement seems to be classical, except the 4 sits on the baseline.

Choz Cunningham
!Exclamachine Type Foundry
http://www.exclamachine.com

Most of what I read here makes sense to me. I have seen a lot of the exceptions to which people are referring. The ascending 5 can look pretty cool and -- more to the point -- quite normal in some typefaces. My own opinion is that the figures should be made to blend in pleasantly with the text, and that is much more tricky than just following rules. Really, a lot of non-lining figures look bad because the designer just "made the 4 descend" without considering how it harmonizes with text. (I've had my own trouble with this very thing, so I sympathize.) I also am always interested to see cases of "semi-lining" figures and other strange hybrids. They can be educational case-studies about what works and what doesn't.

If you want to see an interesting real-world case, check out the changes in the non-lining figures between the original, Type 1 version of Utopia, and the figures in the OpenType version.

Come on Chris, insert an image.

Okay.

So here's a rough of how it's going. Feel free to make alignment suggestions. The numbers are x height. The 0 looks a lot like an o.

Choz Cunningham
!Exclamachine Type Foundry
http://www.exclamachine.com

Choz being that this is a display face perhaps some/all of the so-called rules can be ignored. I might first consider working on the legibility of some of the glyphs.

Christopher, why do you think the ball terminals were removed on the 6/9? A small detail, I guess I could understand making them a little more legible or rather differentiating them more.

I would think removing the ball tails from acenders and decenders would make the color ballance more like lower case letters. This would emphasize the x-height more. I think it was a good idea.

ChrisL

PS: I would have done the 3 and 5 as well.

Hmm. Good point, Dez.

I am guessing the process was this. First a decision to shorten the ascenders and descenders. Second, seeing that the terminals on the 6 and 9 would get crowded with the heavy strokes of the eye of the 6 and 9. Hence the idea of using a pointed terminal to reduce crowding.

However, in the 235 you have the ball terminals opposite a thin part, so they don't crowd so much, meaning put too much weight together. And an important part of the 'look' of Utopia comes from the ball terminals on the a and c. The ball terminals on the 235 echo and reinforce this, particularly on text figures, which will go with the lower case. Also if you change 235 you probably have to change them on the lining figures, and further lose harmony with the face.

Hence this compromise to achieve the goal of making the text figures more compact.

Christopher, why do you think the ball terminals were removed on the 6/9?

The theories above are as good as any. I remember talking with Robert about it at the time he made the changes, but I don't remember him explaining that. (Which is not to say I didn't just forget!)

What's most interesting to me is that there is an overall improvement -- in that the figures just harmonize with the text more. Utopia is a good case for the this particular thread, I think, because the original figures always struck me as a little forced; they conform to the rules of how non-lining figures should be, but they were perhaps lacking design maturity, and never looked comfortable to me. Robert has learned a lot about such things since the early days when he made Utopia, so I think it's reflected in the changes. The figures are, overall, a bit smaller in scale, and all the ascending and descending figures don't look so stretched out. The proportions of each shape are more pleasant.

Anyone designing non-lining figures who thinks, "Just change the 3 to align with the lowercase x-height and descender height" might also take some time to actually look at the results. It's often not so simple.

Of course the other thing going on with Utopia, I think, is that it's a sort of transitional-modern, and non-lining figures just don't always work as well with such designs. I use Utopia Std for a newsletter I make, and I think the lining figures work better -- so as much as I love Utopia, I still am hesitant to use its non-lining figures.

Probably this is why such typefaces -- used so often for magazines and such -- often have more diminutive lining figures or some hybrid. There is less tradition with these more modern styles, and they often benefit from more experimental approaches, at least for type designers with good eyes who are willing to look and think about it.

Linda-
In any artwork I do, I try not to discard a rule until I have a reason, and cant have that until I understand the rule. Looking at a display font, one could think, "oh, look, a display font with text figures, how interesting", or they could say, "hmmm, I wonder why the numbers are all crooked-like. How lame." I'd prefer the former, if that was the intention. !Exclamachine's agenda is to make bizarre fonts that are more typographer-friendly, so I'm attacking that from several angles.

As far as the legibility, I will be doing a good bit of work on the weight, contrast and spacing. I will keep fidling with contours until I get a more pleasant 'carved' look. The above is pretty early on, with just the basic forms of the glyphs defined.

Choz Cunningham
!Exclamachine Type Foundry
http://www.exclamachine.com

I wasn't going to do old style figures for this face, I mean, it's a modern.
However, after implementing both proportional and tabular figures in OpenType, I realized that because of the way InDesign implements OT figures, it's either one style or four (because if the font contains only proportional and tab lining figures, the palette nonetheless shows old style figures as an option). So I made the old style figures -- or perhaps they should be called postmodern figures. What do you think, is this a travesty?

It often seems to me that there is just as much 'information' in a 2 as there is in a 4 in some typefaces and perhaps they should be given equal height. Nick, why does your 4 lose the serif?

Tim

Thanks for the reply, Christopher. I suppose with things such as this is it always subjective in the end anyway. I'll have to do a comparison for myself to see if I *feel* the difference. :^)

Tim,
I can't speak for Nick but it makes sense to me. IMHO, The serif on the lining figures hits the baseline and emphasizes it. The stem of the 4 on the oldstyle figures comes below the line and gets the feel of a decender. Putting a serif on it would make too strong a horizontal pull below the baseline and give a line of figures too wavy of a look and fight the supposedly stronger baseline in lower case.

ChrisL

It often seems to me that there is just as much ‘information’ in a 2 as there is in a 4 in some typefaces and perhaps they should be given equal height. Nick, why does your 4 lose the serif?

I often "cheat" on the height of oldstyle 2, making it slightly higher than the top of the 3.

Chris is right about the serif. I think it's for standing on, so if the letter is sitting on the baseline with the leg hanging, then the toe drops down.

**

At Typecon, Akira Kobayashi recalled the anecdote of how, with trepidation, he asked Adrian Frutiger if it would be OK for Linotype to add old style figures to the Frutiger face. No problem, said AF, and drew the designs on the spot, in a couple of seconds (Akira showed the sketch): but here's the kicker -- he drew the 4 standing on the baseline, not sitting. However as eventually implemented, it's sitting. I didn't have a chance to ask Akira about this (my reputation is churlish enough), but I did wonder.

**

Choz -- You should try a version where your proportions are strictly conventional for OSF. Your treatment of detail, and curve shapes, are unusual enough that I don't think you will be compromising your design by doing that, and you will gain in "disambiguation".

Dear Choz,

I'm a big fan of retro type but I fail to see what's retro here? It's a good thing we're not married because I think your 6 would be grounds for a divorce. Have you done anything clever to keep the 0 from looking like the o? I like to be able to tell the difference but I think the 0's that are thin all the way around are rubbish.

I remember reading somewhere that when making the text figures the designer decided that the 3 should ascend because when descending it looked too much like the z. This probably relates to a cursive typeface, but I think it works as a example of when one can do something unusual with the purpurse of making the whole more usual.
That sounded more complicated than I wanted.

Nick -
I tried that, however the '4' always looked bottom heavy suddenly. That may just be my ersonal quirks reading, not sure. I would like the clarity of conventionality, and with OT can might include both arrangements.

Nigella -
It looked more retro when I started, I swear! Since then, I've removed about 1/3 of the serifs, tapered strokes to points, and actually 'borrowed a little' from some calligraphy my wife left out. Table figuresd will also be included, but I was still planing as having the text style as default. I will re-evaluate that when the letters are done. At this point the zeroes are slightly narrower than the O & o, and the 'noise' of the strokes is varied. Except where I want it ambigous, my zeros are usually narrower.

marco -
I've read that that is a french tradition, where the z more commonly has a descender. Sounds like a good idea in any face where that is the case, though.

Choz Cunningham
!Exclamachine Type Foundry
http://www.exclamachine.com

Choz, I have much more problem with your 6 than your 9. I think that's because when drawing a zero, one normally starts at the top left. So that stub ascender could be taken as just a pen mark, as it were.

Christopher: thanks for pointing out the change in Utopia! I hadn't noticed it, mostly because I haven't had occasion to use Utopia since the re-release (you know how it is, we are mostly stuck using Myriad and Minion for work-related stuff). I really like the improvements Rob made.

Cheers,

T

I think that’s because when drawing a zero, one normally starts at the top left.

Interesting. Mine start at the 1 o'clock (near right corner) position. Likely, that's an adaptation to left-handedness. I wonder what other letters I've got an altered POV on, due to learing alternate strokes for coming at text from the flip side!?

Are there other lefties out there? Do they have any thoughts on this, or pointers?

Choz Cunningham
!Exclamachine Type Foundry
http://www.exclamachine.com

Lefties have always had a very tough time with caligraphy because their hand position gets so uncomfortable trying to write a script developed for righthanders. This is probably as much the case in normal cursive writing as well.

ChrisL

I usually write my '4's similar to how Choz has designed his - standing on the baseline with the diagonal stroke acting as an ascender. That way the evens (4,6,8) ascend, and the odds (3,5,7,9) descend. It seems to make more sense to me that way.

- Lex