Typophile

Standardized font feature icons

Nick Shinn

Font distibutors such as MyFonts, and publishers such as Linotype and FontFont, employ a system of icons to represent the features available in fonts.

These descend from the icons used in the GUIs of word processing and layout applications.

Noting that these icon systems are proprietary, I’ve recently made a set for my own use, in font format. However, it occurred to me that a standardized system might be useful for all concerned, especially to avoid confusion amongst those who come into contact with different ways of representing the same feature.

Is this a good idea, and if so, how could it be implemented, if at all?

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Tiffany Wardle

Thomas posted recent to his blog that the icons use by Adobe were available to anyone who wished to use them.

Nick Shinn

Wish I’d known that yesterday!

Anyway, I went through the process of making my own set, and came up with some slightly different designs, and some extra glyphs, such as one to represent Unicase.

But the question still stands (irrespective of Adobe’s generosity) — wouldn’t a standardized set be useful?

Are these Adobe icons consistent with the icons in Illustrator, etc?

Stephen Coles

> Wish I’d known that yesterday!

This is one instance in which RSS really comes in handy.

Kudos to Adobe and Thomas for making these available.

Tiffany Wardle

I’m not sure if they are consistent. I’ve pointed Thomas and Miguel toward this thread.

ebensorkin

I agree it might - as long as the symbols are really used by buyers ( are they? ) and as long as they are quite well designed. I have been meaning to look at the Adobe symbols but have not done it yet. I finally will now. Nick, care to show us your designs?

ebensorkin

I had a look the adobe icons seem nice although they do seem very print oriented as the Gifs are a bit fuzzy. Now I need to look at the others...

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