Typophile

Questions about Old Style or Hanging Figure Numbers

evanmacdonald

OK, So I am a huge fan of Hanging Figures (or lowercase figures, or old style, whatever). I know that some sans faces have them, but many don't.

I have altered the numerals for the Trade Gothic Condensed to make the numerals look better with the all lowercase text. Still, I know better than to alter a typeface.

I would like to know if this is just dead wrong, is it okay? I didn't squish any letterforms.. I actually manipulated some of the anchor points. Part of me is ticked with myself for thinking about it, and another part likes the way it looks.

Please tell me what you think?

Thanks,

evan

Ch

i'm more of a self taught novice than most folks here, but here's my two cents:

in general, i'm all for customizing - font designers may cringe, but sometimes you just have to tweak something a little. it can be tricky but the challenge is the fun. i'm also a big fan of hanging figures and have customized a few non-hangers in my day.

in your example, however, i'm not sure the font supports it. in particular, the top curve of the 2 in its unaltered state doesn't seem to match the altered curves of the others (5,3,8,6). i suspect that the integrity of these numerals in their unaltered state is strong enough to resist modification.

since you're mixing fonts, perhaps there is a sans with hanging figures ?

a quick search found these examples:

adnix

The proportions of the 1 and 2 look out of sync with the rest of the numbers.

David

Charles Ellertson

to my eye, as adnix says, the 1 and 2 are off, but so too are the 3 and 6, 7. The 4 isn't working either, & as a guess, if we could see it, the 9 is probably not quite right either. None of it too far of, but far enough to make them look odd.

All this could be be fixed. I've done it for several fonts with reasonable success, and I'm not that good at originating glyphs. FWIW, the "2" is usually the hardest.

Dave Williams

FWIW, I think these old-style numerals tend to look nicer in styles where the ascender of the 6 and the descender of the 9 are just gentle sweeps (as in most of Chris' suggestions above), and not so good in those where they curl back inwards – as in the Trade Gothic Cond that you've been working with.
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Ever since I chose to block pop-ups, my toaster's stopped working.

David Berlow

I like OS figures to be proportionally spaced for almost all uses.

Cheers!

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