Typophile

one- and double-storied letters

nicolefally

dear typophiles,

I'm going to study at the Reading MATD in a few weeks and started my first warmup research-exercise:

I stated this exercise with a quesion of mixing one-storied and two-storied g's and a's in one font and how this decision can affect the delivered impression. What are the reasons and arguments to decide which forms to use and what kinds of problems would you associate with this question? In which context does one form make sense and in what context the other?

I know my question is quite general in the moment but nevertheless I would appreciate any hint concerning:

> examples of typefaces which provide alternatives (both styles)
> historical background about the one- and two-storied forms
> any rules or conventions in which one style should be used
> connotations/denotations for the single characters
> ...advices which I'm not able to think of by now

thanks a lot!
nicole

PS are there any serif-fonts with one-storied a or g? Or fonts with double-storied a but one-storied g (which is more unusual than the opposite)?

Frode Bo Helland

Plantin Schoolbook (actually most Schoolbook of any font variants) have a one story 'a' and 'g'. Plantin Schoolbook was sort of brought to attention by Wallpaper Magazine, btw. Both Capsa by Dino dos Santos and Galaxie Copernicus by Kris Sowersby (both based on Plantin) also do. Many Neo Grotesques have a one story 'g' and a two story 'a', amongst others Helvetica.

Tim Ahrens

Facit has both variants for both a and g.

Thesis has both options for the g.

Look at Frutiger's designs for further one-storey serif g's.

Tim Ahrens

You can also search the internet for information and discussions about "infant forms".

Tim Ahrens

http://typophile.com/node/17098
http://typophile.com/node/16494

Frode Bo Helland

While you're at it, you might want to look into two story “y”s as well!

ebensorkin

I suggest that you re-post this to general discussions to get more traffic and more information. Cheers!

Maybe link back to the original thread as well.

nicolefally

thank you tim and frank (which is hopefully your first name?).
I'll go through all the suggestions you made and thanks also for the links to previous threads, I was searching for a while but could only find this one: http://typophile.com/node/10040

and as eben advised, it's going on here: http://typophile.com/node/61679

Frode Bo Helland

Frode is my first name. Frank is my pseudo middle name. Good luck!

nicolefally

sorry ;-)

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