Typophile

Greek lowercase to match Adobe Jenson

msilverz

I'm typesetting my (philosophy) dissertation in Adobe Jenson, and I need to use a few lowercase Greek letters (probably only phi and psi). Could someone please recommend a typeface with Greek lowercase letters that will look good alongside Adobe Jenson?

The closest I have access to are Minion Pro and the free Garamond Premier Pro that came with my copy of InDesign. Here's what they look like alongside Adobe Jenson:

I used Greek phi's from Minion on the top line and from Garamond Premier on the bottom line. The second phi on each line is set in italics; I can't decide whether I prefer it that way.

Minion's x-height is significantly larger than Jenson's, so I had to shrink the Minion phi's to 11.2 pt (against 12 pt Jenson). That made them too thin, though, so I switched to the Caption optical size. For Garamond Premier, the first phi is just the Regular optical size at 12 pt. The italic phi at the end of the line is from the Caption font, reduced to 11.4 pt.

Which of these four phi's does everyone prefer? Any other suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

Matty

gtrianta

Try out some of Greek Font Society's revivals

George Triantafyllakos - backpacker.gr

Hyperboreus

Dear Mr. Silverstein,

The ‘New Hellenic Greek’ is based on the work of Nicolas Jenson
(and Joannes Rubeus):
http://www.monotypefonts.com/Library/Non-Latin-Library.asp?show=sample&l...
There is also a free variant of the typeface known as ’GFS Neohellenic’:
http://www.greekfontsociety.org/pages/en_typefaces20th.html

P. L.

P. S.
The following node might interest You also: http://typophile.com/node/19265

msilverz

Thanks for the suggestions. Here's a new comparison picture.


The bottom line uses GFS Neohellenic 12.4 pt (against Jenson 12 pt). The phi's were too small at 12 pt. I think I prefer both Minion and Garamond Premier. Any other thoughts or recommendations?

Matty

Linda Cunningham

IMVHO, the Garamond works a touch better (although I do like the Minion): I'd make sure, as well, that in comparing A and Φ, as in your example, that if the A is italic, then the Φ should be as well, even though I personally prefer the roman Φ to the italic....

poms

You might have a look at the x-large unicode project Gentium, too.

twardoch

Matthew,

you might try out Adobe's new release, Arno Pro, which is a "modernized Jenson". A preliminary version of that font is bundled with the public beta of Photoshop CS3.

A.

msilverz

I've added both Gentium and Arno to the picture below.


Gentium, on the fourth line, is a bit to wide—a bit too open. (Thanks for pointing it out though; I'd never seen this lovely typeface before.) Arno, on the bottom line, is pretty much perfect—especially the italic at the end of the line. I think that is what I'm going to use. Thanks again for all the suggestions!

Captured from web.archive.org on 25 Dec 2011. view this capture