Typophile

Should accents be scaled by case?

Nick Shinn


Top: accents all the same size.
Middle: lower case and small cap accents are the same size, cap accent slightly bigger.
Bottom: accents progressively sized.

In many faces (but not all), I vary the angle of the acute, grave and circumflex/caron accents between cap, small cap and lower case.
However, I always make the tilde, ring, dieresis etc. the same size—through laziness as much as anything else, I guess.
However it ocurred to me while making the “N small cap with tilde” accent here that perhaps these accents should be sized according to case. (Actually, I have had this thought before, concerning the “attached accents”, ogonek and cedilla.)
I wonder if there are any types where this has been done?
Is it a good idea?

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Chris Lozos

I think it is a case-by-case issue. What looks good for a prticular font is good but not necessarily law for all fonts.
I like #2 best in the above tlde case. For ogoneks, I make different ones for i than for wider letters and for curved bottom letters like u, I make a joining adjustment.

ChrisL

Jos Buivenga

I went to the same thoughts when I was working on the accents for Calluna (not ready yet). I widened the dieresis and tilde. Scaling them made them too fat.

Nick Shinn

What about small caps Jos?
It’s there that the difference in scaling of the letter and the accent is most obvious.

Jos Buivenga

Nick, I agree with Chris on this one. It can be a good idea, but it depends on your design. In your case I would opt for version #2 but with the capital accent scaled but a little less heavy. Your post is good food for thought and set me to think about my own small caps accents also. In my case I guess I’ll have to try something that lies in between U&lc.

David Berlow

“Is it a good idea?”
The bigger the gap between the heights and weights of the l.c. and u.c., the more likely the need for case sensitive accents. Text vs. display also plays a part, as does of course, design energy.

Cheers!

Thomas Phinney

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