Will you expound on your "boumas" theory (or point me toward an especially telling thread).

"Fleischmann hazy magic?" Do you maybe have a sample of this magic?

--jay

Nick

Speaking of ligs, how about that "Ov" ?!

Strictly ornamental.

����������

A. Scott Britton

Won't the looped "ct" ligature rub someone the wrong way because they at least have some subconscious knowledge that it isn't humanly possible?

Strictly ornamental, people just love it. "talk about it too!"

����������

Hrant

"The difference between legibility and readability"

Strictly dismal.

Where has our morality gone?

Readability is a conspiracy between the French eye glass manufactureres and book publishers which allowed printers to manufacture "smaller books", with "smaller type". Economy at the expense of the reader. Some present typophiles continue to convince the reader they are either blind, or stupid.

Never believe your own advertising literature. Some typophiles have become victims of their industries plot? Some believe the reason they can not read is because of some fault of the type. Well some people are blind, and some, are stupid. But not all.

To think once we were the instruments of wisdom, instruments of enlightenment, freedom.

Oh where, oh where has our humanity gone?

Thanks for the Legato link, Hrant.

Bouma stuff:
http://www.themicrofoundry.com/ss_read1.html

Here's a lc charset of Fleischmann's #65, his most characteristic design:
http://www.themicrofoundry.com/other/Fman65.gif
And a pair of recent posts to Typo-L:
http://listserv.heanet.ie/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0405&L=typo-l&T=0&F=&S=&P=8664
http://listserv.heanet.ie/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0405&L=typo-l&D=0&T=0&P=8767

> Oh where, oh where has our humanity gone?

I'm sure there's a poem about it.

hhp

Some believe the reason they can not read is because of some fault of the type.

Worse, some appear not to want to be able to read, so that they may have a cause to 'improve' the type. Their ability to read so great a variety of typefaces must be a constant annoyance to them.

Does a BMW designer get annoyed by the fact that some people are stuck driving Trabants? Nope. But he sure gets annoyed when a Trabant designer pretends that his stuff is just as good as a BMW. Especially annoying is a Trabant designer who is put in a position to ask a BMW designer exactly how better design doesn't matter... What a wonderful maxim for type design: "Good design doesn't matter." People don't drive crappy cars because there's nothing wrong with it, they drive crappy cars because they don't know any better. Don't celebrate ignorance, even if it makes your job a lot easier. Learn to see inside the murkiness instead, even though you will find no cozy Answer.

hhp

Hrant,

Ever heard of "Braille"? http://www.rit.edu/~easi/easisem/nemeth2.htm

Designing a BMW has nothing to do with speed. It it did they would be designing fighter jets. Old ladies drive cars. Even you can drive, almost anyone can drive. Read too.

BMW design is about "style", http://www.crxsi.com/mycar/lada.htm
the "driving experience" and for you, maybe an "identity crisis". Car and type design are "fashion statements"

"a matter of taste."

So it is understandable why you get confused. A type designer that hates poetry and art, to put it bluntly, is in the wrong industry.

Also it is the last time I will be sympathetic to your attacks on people about "raw capitalism". Nothing could be more tacky than tooling around in some "bald mans" machine disguised as a wheeled Heinenken can burping out "unfashionable" hydocarbons. Are you old enough for this? � http://www.heineken.com/canada/
Doesn't take a genius to drink either. You just have to be over nineteen.

I would never have taken you for a yuppy. What do I know? Gullible I guess. You probably got one of those cell phone contraptions crazy glued to your ear.

So ends your fable.

http://www.aesopfables.com/

Oh, yes, before I forget, I do like poetry.
http://lanstontype.com/GiampaIntroduction.html
http://lanstontype.com/EzraPound.html

Hrant,

The point is, I think you miss the point.

Is it wrong to try to find a way to improve something? Maybe we should still be driving Ford�s model "T", everybody loved it on it�s time, I guess I could even drive one quite easily.

Legiblity is a quality of graphics, Readability is a quality of text. Random caps in text make it less legible, random words on text make it less readable. �What do we understand for each concept?

H�ctor,

What the question is, why is speed the only consideration in type design? When we are confronted with fathoms of illuminating objectives why would anyone pick designing for "the reading impaired"? If you want to "speed read" take the class. http://www.rocketreader.com/

Think about it. Even they don't blame it on the type. Mind you they haven't seen everything.

But to answer your question, naturally you want to improve your type design. Start by making it beautiful. It won't be if you can't read it, but don't worry, people know how to read.

My friend, make your type sing like the nightingales.

For Hrant,

NIGHTINGALES
��
BEAUTIFUL must be the mountains whence ye come,
And bright in the fruitful valleys the streams, wherefrom �
Ye learn your song: �
Where are those starry woods? O might I wander there, �
Among the flowers, which in that heavenly air
Bloom the year long! �
�
Nay, barren are those mountains and spent the streams: �
Our song is the voice of desire, that haunts our dreams, �
A throe of the heart, �
Whose pining visions dim, forbidden hopes profound, No dying cadence nor long sigh can sound, �For all our art. �
�
Alone, aloud in the raptured ear of men �
We pour our dark nocturnal secret; and then, �
As night is withdrawn
From these sweet-springing meads and bursting boughs of May, �
Dream, while the innumerable choir of day �
Welcome the dawn.

Robert Bridges.�b. 1844

> hand rendered
Yes, obvious, but I was putting it forward as an alternative to the upward movement over the second stroke of the c, with its risk of "pooling". I don't claim that it is easier, quicker or even more elegant, I assumed that one could extrapolate it to a calligraphic solution.

> humanly possible
People write in different ways, I don't write with my pen always on the paper, but after consideration and a few attempts it was not difficult. So I tried it and although it is a bit strange to make the strokes in haste, it would just be a question of getting used to it. The strokes, after all, are not that different one would use for most circular letters albeit at a smaller scale.

I imagine that it wouldn't be a effective way to write quickly but as an ornamentation/affectation when doing calligraphy it can work � the main drawback would be mis-reading ct as et so care would have to be employed. Nor do I imagine that it would be a effective method for creating a ligature for a font (since one cannot govern the size that it would be used), but in a logo it might be useful. I have included an e so that the distinction is clear. I agree that the first sample is the easiest and probably what is generally used, but that shouldn't halt experimentation.

Tim

Tim, your demonstration is appreciated... but it still doesn't prove the (human) possibility of creating the figure on the magazine cover by means of the broadnib pen. The figure YOU created is fundamentaly different than that which adorns 'Practical Electrics'; the width of the loop's modulation is the same as the letter c's broadest arc--a human possibility (albeit strained).

All apologies if that sounded rude, Tim. I wasn't attacking you personally, just trying to show that the connective loop in that particular ligature is humanly impossible (regardless of whether or not that actually has any bearing on issues of readability or legibility).

Design and lettering by Alex Steinweiss, 1948
From "For the record"

The incomparable Steinweiss used many pens, did plenty of embellishments in many genres, but never classical-style flourished ligatures. (So far as I can tell from my record collection and the examples in the book.) Here, he could have done the "st" lig in Kostelanetz.

The style of lettering identified with him, now available as a font named "Hairspray" for some strange reason, and (shame!) unattributed (and I bet he doesn't get royalties either), is a casual, cursive, light monoline script. It was made into a font in 1939, "Steinweiss Scrawl", and available from Photolettering Inc. in the 1950s.

Conclusion: the flourished joining ligatures are a product of writing with a broad-nib pen. They would be easy to do with a round-nibbed "Speedball" pen (presumably what Steinweiss used), but they don't belong ... unless the calligrapher is in a Post-modern groove.

Or Pseudo-proto-modern: Storm added the ct and st ligs to Sebastian, his 18th century sans serif.

> the flourished joining ligatures are a
> product of writing with a broad-nib pen.

I don't see that. You might do it with any instrument. I think it simply comes from a physical "follow-through" movement, but the decorative dimension is sort of an "ergonomic expression" if you will.

hhp

Hrant, I never implied that good design didn't matter. What I challenge is the notion that changes in typeface design can significantly improve on what we already do so well: read text. There are plenty of other reasons to design new text typefaces and to design them well, but to pretend that we're chasing some elusive readability is, as I've said before, to willfully ignore the daily reading experience of many hundreds of miliions of people reading a great diversity of writing systems under incredibly diverse and often adverse conditions. Human beings are better at reading than any improvement at the type design level can significantly affect. If you really cared about readability, you wouldn't be talking about type design at all: you'd be talking about page layout, printing and screen technologies, and other things that do have a significant impact on readability. Readability at the type design level is the base prerequisite, not an achievement.

... random words on text make it less readable

Random words in text make it less comprehensible, but not necessarily less readable in the sense that 'readble' is commonly used on Typophile. The line between the cognitive acts of text recognition and of understanding is a porous one, and 'reading' understood in toto involves both, but the impact of random words on reading speed has to do with our ability to make sense of the text, not our ability to recognise words. In most of the discussions of readability among typographers and type designers, the comprehensive aspect is ignored, since the professional obsession is with the cognitive act of text recognition. Introducing the comprehensive aspect of reading further diminishes the relative impact of type design, since it is obvious that good writing is more important than a good typeface.

> significantly improve

And yet again I have to point out the obvious issue:
What is "significant" in type design? Almost nothing. So it's a matter of context, and a good craftsman needs to be very concerned with the smallest of gains - they are "significant" to him, as a person creating quality objects, if for no other reason than because that justifies his existence, because it makes him happy. It is in the context of our individuality that any of this is "significant" - otherwise there are extremely few really "significant" reasons to make new fonts. Plus that effort is usually better spent elsewhere anyway!

Was it "significant" to use an esoteric pen to make SBL Hebrew*? Who the hell would have noticed any difference? And then you claim "enhanced dissimilation between similar Hebrew letters", but when needed you say it doesn't matter? And then you put the top-right spur on the final-kaf anyway, even though that's exactly opposite of the claim! Only the most conservative fonts -the ones that don't worry about dissimilation- do that. I honestly don't know what to think about the aggregate of your opinions on functionality. It really seems that you're just giving people what they expect, depending on context. Sure, expectation is part of functionality too, but there has to be an overall rhyme and reason, at least on the personal level - otherwise it's just reactionary.

* Although when it seems necessary you tend to claim that the pen didn't influence the result...

And then I have to repeat this yet again, apprently: There is a difference between what people think they can read comfortably versus what they can read comfortably for extended periods, without even realizing. It is in the latter arena that a good craftsman is most concerned. It is in the promotion of efficiency, not the assumption of its irrelevance, that good design is best expressed. People don't read "fast enough" [partly] because of bad typography (and type), not because they can't read any faster. That's why using a serif font for a book matters for example. They can read sans just fine, so why not use sans for books? Because the more you push the limits of performace, the more the supposedly "insignificant" things matter.

> you'd be talking about page layout

But I don't like page layout. Get it?

That's like me telling you: If you're really concerned about conveying information to people (the main point of typography), then dedicate your life to the publishing and distribution of books - and websites! Or maybe you should be writing book? And since conveying information to people is intended to help them, I might propose that you forget typography entirely, and concentrate on what the bulk of the human population is severly lacking and truly needs: not books, but food and decency!! Who was more significant, Claude Garamont or Rachel Corrie? Or Mother Teresa?! Who gives a crap about Garamont.

But in order to propose such things I would need to ignore what you need out of life - what is in your nature. And I will not do that - because it doesn't make sense.

hhp

Hrant,

There is a difference between what people think they can read comfortably versus what they can read comfortably for extended periods, without even realizing.

Buy a better chair.

���������������

"But I don't like page layout. Get it?"

I don't wish to speak for John, but I must say that it is you who doesn't get it. Get it?

>You might do it with any instrument.

Thank-you for agreeing with me Hrant. If you had continued reading (must be the poor readability of the font on your monitor), you would have seen "They would be easy to do with a round-nibbed "Speedball" pen (presumably what Steinweiss used), but they don't belong".

We have discussed the technics of the ct and st ligs extensively, what I'm trying to do here, with "but they don't belong" is take things into what John calls the "comprehensive aspect".

> must be the poor readability of the font

No, I think it was your poor writing. :->
I actually read it twice.

hhp

I have the feeling that maybe the distinction between legibility and readability is not clear enough (or maybe I haven�t understood it well).
For legibility I�m understanding the typographic contrast which make letters recognizable, depending on the x height, the contrast, the conventionality, etc.
For readability I�m understanding the quality of a text by which it�s comprehensible, not having anything to do with type but with syntaxis, topic familiarity, clear ideas, etc.
The relation between them is proportionally inverse: a readable text relies less on legibility and an unreadable text relies more on it because there is a need for extra visual information to predict and confirm the sense of the reading. I also have the notion that text recognition can be affected by unreadability due to the lack of a predictive direction on the perceptive task given by the understood sense of the text. Right?

I still can�t find the fault on the sake of an improvement nor a reason to pick on someone because of it, even if it�s not considered worthy or significant or by some.

What is "significant" in type design? Almost nothing. So it's a matter of context, and a good craftsman needs to be very concerned with the smallest of gains - they are "significant" to him, as a person creating quality objects, if for no other reason than because that justifies his existence, because it makes him happy. It is in the context of our individuality that any of this is "significant" - otherwise there are extremely few really "significant" reasons to make new fonts.

This is all fine and good: if you want to justify your existence by obsessing about the miniscule significance within a miniscule significance that is improved readability at the type design level, go ahead. But it is far from clear from your typical pronouncements on this subject that this is all about 'individuality', especially when you are insulting other individuals because they don't share your obsession.

Was it "significant" to use an esoteric pen to make SBL Hebrew*? Who the hell would have noticed any difference? And then you claim "enhanced dissimilation between similar Hebrew letters", but when needed you say it doesn't matter? And then you put the top-right spur on the final-kaf anyway, even though that's exactly opposite of the claim! Only the most conservative fonts -the ones that don't worry about dissimilation- do that.

So you would prefer to confuse the final kaf with the resh rather than with the dalet? The distinguishing feature of the final kaf is its descender, which is perfectly sufficient for differentiation, especially since the letter only occurs in at the end of a word. Some typefaces model the transition from the horizontal to the vertical on the dalet (spurred) others on the resh (rounded), a few use a hybrid approach. Zvi Narkiss developed a neo-Sepharidic style that tends to favour the rounded form, and I admire his types very much, but in SBL Hebrew I decided to follow a more traditionally typographic, less cursive form. User expectation is one consideration, yes, because the users are Biblical scholars most of whom are familiar with only one or two other Hebrew typefaces (shifting from an 19th century Ashkenazic style to a Sephardic one was enough of a shock for some of them when they first saw SBL Hebrew). However, the other functional consideration -- and this is something that should be right up your street -- is that more words in the Biblical text end in resh than in dalet, therefore it seems more important to distinguish the final kaf from resh than from dalet.

>text recognition can be affected by unreadability due to the lack of a predictive direction on the perceptive task given by the understood sense of the text. Right?

Yes.
We read best who we read most.

> the distinction between legibility
> and readability is not clear enough

Yes, it's confusing.
"Legibility" has a (relatively) focused meaning, concerning the decipherability of individual glyphs; but readability is over-loaded*, with at least three different meanings: to most poeple it refers to the textual content, as in text that's written so as to be easily understood; to most typographers it refers to the page layout, paragraph attributes like good leading, linebreaks, etc.; and the third -most esoteric and controversial, but I feel most impotant to the context of type design- meaning concerns the font itself: the way in which a font promotes decipherment of boumas - different than the decipherment of individual letters. So for example a sans is more legible but less readable than a serif font; and tight letterspacing helps readability but reduces legibility.

* Such over-loading is certainly inconvenient, but it's common, and generally context -which is always there- focuses the meaning quite well.

--

> if you want to justify your existence by obsessing about ....

OK, but I don't see how it's any less "significant" than what you choose to focus on. In the context of the world, they're really about the same. Does my preoccupation with reintroducing readability (in tandem with authenticity, in this case) into Armenian less significant that the way you choose to worry about what kind of pen to use for SBL Hebrew?

> it is far from clear from your typical pronouncements

Yes, you have a point, and I'm slowly learning to tame my insistence that every other type designer worry [as much] about readability - it doesn't make sense. On the other hand, I think I will always get annoyed when a type designer claims that readability simply doesn't matter outright, and (to a lesser extent) when a user doesn't appreciate the difference between a designer who cares about fine-tuning readability and one who doesn't.

BTW, I don't think it's "obsessive", because I know that it's just one factor - which is the reason for example that some glyphs in Patria (like the "a" and "e") have intentionally sub-optimal readability, to promote the "robust" character of the face. And like I've said before, one reason I drone on about readability is that so few other people do, and so many other people want it not to matter.

> you would prefer to confuse the final kaf with the resh rather than with the dalet?

I actually don't know enough myself (what are the relative frequencies, especially wrt position?), I'm actually mostly referring to what "native" Hebrew designers (who have an innate linguistic sensitivity that we don't) are doing: it's not just one Narkiss font - the font in the Unicode table, Friedlaender's popular Hadassah of the late 50s, and every single Hebrew font in Bukvaraz*, with the highly notable exception of the hyper-conservative Nathan, uses the "soft-corner" form.

* Even the super-blocky Atzmaut.

And considering you're such a good researcher, I have to think that you knew about this general trend, but you either thought it's wrong, or you thought that in this case the spurred form makes more sense. Both could be valid, but the second one simply doesn't jibe with dissimilitude (as far as I can tell), which in turn doesn't jibe with what you've said in this thread!

> The distinguishing feature of the final kaf is its descender

But the descender space is so weak in Hebrew - it doesn't seem safe to rely on it. But it depends -again- on the difference between legibility and readability. Sure, when you give a person many seconds to decide what a glyph is, there's no problem - there almost never is. But there are much more severe requirements of decipherability during high-speed immersive reading. Just like how an "rn" can be read as an "m" in English text - but only during immersion. And this is also why typos go unnoticed so frequently.

> I decided to follow a more traditionally typographic, less cursive form.

Right. And my point is that to me it seems to have been at the expense of the "dissimilitude" that you claim. My impression is that this conservatism was the deciding factor, irrespective of dissimilitude, linguistics, etc.

But really, what I mind most isn't that you're conservative, it isn't that you claim "dissimilitide", and it isn't that you're saying it doesn't matter anyway - it's the confluence of all three! :-/

BTW, I'm really not trying to discredit you in toto, I just want to point out what I see as the flaw in the aggregate opinion/action.

> more words in the Biblical text end in resh than in dalet

Yes, this would be significant - and it would be quite a nice refinement - as well as an endorsement for linguistic analysis! Is the data available?

And a question: So is it the opposite in general Hebrew text?

hhp

BTW, there's nothing 'esoteric' about a Pilot parallel pen, Hrant.
I got myself one, a couple of months ago, and I like it. I still think it's a limited tool (I'd say it's too 'mechanical', maybe I should now try other kinds of pen), but it's a good way to start understanding the particularities (pros and cons) of calligraphy.
Get yourself one too. ;-)

> there's nothing 'esoteric' about a Pilot parallel pen

Not to us, sure. But I have to think that the main appeal to laymen -those who even care- is in the "ooh-aah factor", without really getting -or even caring to get- the funky nuances we seem to worry about so much.

Anyway, my point is that relying on a particular writing instrument to make a font is no less esoteric than worrying about readability.

hhp

Yes, this would be significant - and it would be quite a nice refinement - as well as an endorsement for linguistic analysis! Is the data available?

I can probably get a count of word terminal letters. Give me a couple of days.

And a question: So is it the opposite in general Hebrew text?

Probably. However, modern Hebrew distinguishes tense in a regular way, and I don't how this is done or what impact it might have on word endings.


I don't rely on writing instruments to make any font. In the case of SBL Hebrew, unusually, I began the design process by making letters with a broadnib. This wasn't designing per se, this was research on how the steep ductus of Middle Eastern scripts affects the contrast pattern of individual letters in specific writing styles. As I explained during my ATypI presentation on the subject, I think it is important to understand a script within a cultural and historical context, and the best way to understand a script is to write it as it has been written. It happened, at the time, that I didn't have a broadnib pen with the properly angled nib, so I just used a typical broadbnib calligraphy pen. For the next time I want to write Hebrew or Arabic, I now have a set of properly cut reed pens.

I'm troubled that you seem to have conflated this initial research and sketching with designing the typeface, and in some determinative way. As I've explained several times in the past, I design my types entirely onscreen. If I sketch on paper, with outlines, shading, a nib, or any other method, it is only to explore ideas about form. I suppose there might be someone out there who could actually produce the forms of SBL Hebrew, with their various non-chirographic adjustments of weight and terminal, with a broadnib pen. I couldn't.

Anyway, my point is that relying on a particular writing instrument to make a font is no less esoteric than worrying about readability.

Indeed, and there is nothing wrong with esoterica, especially not in this business. But there would be something wrong with demanding that all other type designers should use this particular tool, and insulting them if they don't.

> I can probably get a count of word terminal letters.

I thought you had that already? Anyway, it would indeed be great to see the stats - thanks.

> .... it is only to explore ideas about form.

While I explore ideas about form by doubting established practice.
To each his own, and of course we have to let others decide which approach is good for what.

> there would be something wrong with demanding
> that all other type designers should use this
> particular tool, and insulting them if they don't.

I didn't insult you for using any particular tool. I might even claim that you "insulted" me for using my "esoteric" tool: an understanding of readability. My complaint here -and it remains- is that the triple whammy of: an esoteric marking method, a claim of dissimilation, and a dismissal of the relevance of [font] readability, is non-sensical.

hhp

I wrote: Give me a couple of days.

We're in luck, the brilliant Eli Evans at Libronix, one of the partners in the SBL Font Foundation, quickly came up with this data. Over the past year, Eli has sliced and diced the Hebrew Bible for me in a variety of ways, providing invaluable insight on frequency, rare mark combinations etc.

The graph below shows the frequency of individual consonant endings of the 263,654 words in the WTS electronic Hebrew Bible, analysing both ketiv and qere readings. Eli notes: 'X is for words that I didn't find an ending consonant in ... There are only 16, so I don't think I'll worry about it too much. I'm surprised that 9 words end with a non-final nun, though.'

The middle column is the number of words ending in the consonant on the left. The column on the right is the percentage of the total number of words.

X...........16..........0.01
alef........11588.......4.40
bet.........6678........2.53
gimel.......418.........0.16
dalet.......7230........2.74
he..........39882......15.13
vav.........29151......11.06
zayin.......578.... ....0.22
het.........3766........1.43
tet.........1181........0.45
yod.........28703......10.89
kaf-F.......13520.......5.13
lamed.......11907.......4.52
mem-F.......38851......14.74
nun-F.......12205.......4.63
nun.........9...........0.00
samekh......700.........0.27
ayin........3736........1.42
pe-F........2413........0.92
tsadi-F.....3219........1.22
qof.........1841........0.70
resh........20974.......7.96
shin........5818........2.21
tav.........19270.......7.31

-F indicates athe final form consonant. Here is Eli's graph:

Hrant, you have frequently in the past insulted other type designers for failing to accept your insistence on readability as the only serious and worthy approach to their craft. On Typophile and the ATypI list, and presumably elsewhere, you have been scathing about 'creativity', 'artistes', etc. It is to this that I was alluding and objecting, not because I'm a champion of romantic creation or artistry, but because my own interest in readability leads me to different conclusions from yours. You've put typeface readability on a pedestal, while I think it belongs in the foundation, where it can do most good. What we build on top of that foundation is cultural.

I'm really not looking for a fight. I'm trying to figure out why you keep picking on my SBL Hebrew font (last time, you even used your favourite phrase: 'fatal flaw'), when numerous people -- the intended users of the font --, who know a lot more about Biblical Hebrew than either you or I, have described it as the best Hebrew font they have ever used. I suggest you conduct a survey of the printing of critical editions of the Hebrew Bible, as I have. Then you'll see just how significant is the improvement in letter differentiation between SBL Hebrew and the typefaces that Biblical Scholars have been working with for more than 100 years.

I thought you had that already?

Not full stats. I'd observed the much greater incidence of word-terminal resh while examining various editions. Actually, I was surprised by how high the distribution of terminal dalet is in Eli's stats: I would have guessed that it was even lower.


By the way, I've just completed another Hebrew typeface design that is in many respects less traditional than SBL Hebrew, but using some of the same techniques for letter differentiation. Initial response from Hebrew readers has been very positive. I pursue advancement in typeface design as cumulative effort. One could spend years thinking and talking about the radical breakthrough that one intends to make, endlessly tuning the same typeface, or would could design and release a body of work.

John,

On Typophile and the ATypI list, and presumably elsewhere, you have been scathing about 'creativity', 'artistes', etc. It is to this that I was alluding and objecting, not because I'm a champion of romantic creation or artistry, but because my own interest in readability leads me to different conclusions from yours. You've put typeface readability on a pedestal, while I think it belongs in the foundation, where it can do most good. What we build on top of that foundation is cultural.

I think you have hit the nail on the head. Readability is naturally important. Such as tea, you drink tea, you don't eat tea. Maybe the English do, they like it strong. We should assume that tea is to be drunk, we should take that for granted. Tea has other qualities that are of more interest. It is these other qualities that are of importance, the cultural, the serving, the ceremony. Little need to be said that you can drink tea. If that were not the case�it simply would not be tea�it would be something else. So why dwell on what simply is more than obvious.

In fact, what makes tea more drinkable is not that it is pourable�it is the "taste".

Yes, I may be one of those "Artistes" you are speaking of.

That data is very nice - thank you. And it seems to support giving a spur to the final-kaf, at least for a font specifically for Biblical Hebrew. On the other hand (and especially if you believe Larson :-), overall frequency data would be important too, like if dalet is more frequent than resh overall. Also, I'd be interested to find out if general Hebrew text is different.

But I don't want to divert from my main point: this sort of analysis is doubly "insignificant", no? :-/
You really can't say readability is minutia and then spend so much effort analyzing dissimilation.

> you have frequently in the past insulted other type designers

I'm frankly tired of the whining. I've been insulted 10 times more than any of you, but I don't allow that to derail the content. You're not going to get me to follow your particular shallow interpretation of how people should behave - so please just move on. And most of all, don't use my "bad behavior" as a proxy target, as an excuse for what you're really pissed about: my ideas.

> the only serious and worthy approach to their craft.

I've never said such a thing - that would be inhuman.

On the other hand, I certainly have a problem with people who value their own formal expression more than the needs of users. And I'm not the only one with this complaint, simply the most vocal one, and the one who doesn't believe in your rules of social behavior and hence is the most convenient target.

> I'm trying to figure out why you keep picking on my SBL Hebrew font

Here you're either halucinating, or my memory is failing me in a way it almost never does. I've only said good things about SBL Hebrew - this complaint about the final-kaf is the only negative thing I've said about it, and it's minor* - certainly "fatal flaw" is way off. The only really bad design you've made (in fact it wasn't even you who made it!) is the Georgian component of Sylfaen: its cartoonish proportions make it indeed fatally flawed as a text face, while its Latin part is very much a text face**. Overall I think your work is very solid, if too conventional. Sort of like the Slimbach of the non-Latin world. To whom it may concern: take that as an insult if that turns you on - but it's not one.

* Plus I might even admit it was an incorrect opinion, pending more data and thought.

** And I understand that there were other attenuating circumstances: Dumbadze passed away during its development, and it was never supposed to actually be released.

> I was surprised by how high the distribution of terminal dalet is in Eli's stats

That's normal: anecdotal observation typically exagerates the empirical "truth", possibly in order to better notice things and remember them.

> I pursue advancement in typeface design as cumulative effort.

Me too.

hhp

Here you're either halucinating, or my memory is failing me in a way it almost never does. I've only said good things about SBL Hebrew...

I'd quite understand if you had forgotten, since it was in the hideous swastika thread. December 14th 2003, you wrote: 'John: I'd much rather spend the time pointing out the fatal flaws in your Hebrew fonts.'

I apologize for that lapse.

I didn't remember that probably because it didn't mean anything to me, but thanks for pointing it out - I need to keep cooler, more often.

hhp