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- Lex

Typophiler David Hamuel has a lovely calligraphic font, Shirah 25.

Matching Hebrew and Roman fonts is always difficult. It may be that a font with the 'crowns' on the letters will better match a roman script font, because of the high contrast.

The best thing is probably to get a calligrapher with Hebrew expertise to do the invitation, and he or she will be able to match the Hebrew and English. I am talking about the calligrapher doing a model to photograph and print from, of course, not the addressing the envelopes etc.

There are a number of fine calligraphers who do this kind of thing--Hebrew and English--in the New York area, where you are. They also do Ketubbot, etc.

How bout

‏פךנקיהליה
(I hope i spelled that right!!!)

from Oded Ezer

This is quite tricky. Are you looking for formal or casual, old-fashioned or modern, religious or secular?

For example, Shira 25 could be appropriate for a traditional event. For a good selection of more casual fonts, see http://www.masterfont.co.il

It may be that a font with the 'crowns' on the letters will better match a roman script font, because of the high contrast.

You mean tagin? These are specific to STA'M (Sifrei Torah, Tefillin and Mezuzot) lettering, so I'm not sure how appropriate they would be for other use, even if the wedding is taking place in a religious context.

Yes, I was referring to tagin. I think I remember 'stam' fonts being used on invitations, but they may have been Bar or Bat Mitzvah invitations. Because the Bar Mitzvah ceremony involves the first reading from the Torah for the child, it might be more appropriate there. I don't know of any prohibition on using this style, though.

Overall, a copperplate latin script I think would be particularly hard to match, because Hebrew cursive script is not connected, and the normal square writing shapes are very different. I would think that a calligraphic roman, like Brioso or Diotima, would be easier to match with a calligraphic Hebrew.

But overall, it is very hard because Hebrew has thin verticals and thick horizontals, and Roman the opposite. If the invitation is done by a calligrapher he or she can keep the pen at a similar angle for both, and make them work together.

I put together David and Friz Quadrata on a project, and they worked as the low contrast made the differences in stress stand out less. But they wouldn't work on an invitation...

Thanks all. I’m aware of the hassle involved in matching fonts across alphabets. Fortunately I don’t need to mix them on the same page (much) so the match needn’t be close; all I’m looking for is a similar level of “swash-ness”. OTOH, Zapfino is rather excessive in that regard, so I might be setting the bar too high….

I’m looking for formal and decorative—the same situation that makes a swash script appropriate in Latin type. No tagim. Shira 25 is pleasant, if simple. Frankruhlya is horrific. (I was about to say “grotesque”, but apparently that’s a term of art in type design.)

Is it completely crazy that I haven’t found anything that appeals to me as much as the fairly cheap Davka Gonen?

> fairly cheap Davka Gonen?

Known as Meiri. Gonen is really poor design.

Yeah, I finally noticed that Gonen:

I suppose the font used isn’t bad, but I’ll keep my eyes open for something with a bit more flair.

--Joel

>Zapfino is rather excessive in that regard

Zapfino is fine, but I don't think there is any kind of Hebrew style that has that kind of loopy high contrast stroke.

Here is a link for http://Brioso, which is the kind of thing I think will work more easily with a calligraphic Hebrew.

> is different from the text in the invitation:

The font is Yerushalmi (based on the lettering used in the Dead Sea Scrolls)

Guttman Adii, Guttman Mantova, or Guttman-Aram might be some good choices. These all come with Microsoft Proofing Tools.

George