Jelle Bosma's Cambria uses a contextual replacement of the letter f with a variant that has a shorter tail when followed by ascending letters such as i, b, k, l, h, f, or by accented letters. This seems to be an elegant technique which avoids the need to making multiple ligatures.
Which other typefaces use that kind of technique? (Not necessary just for f, but also to resolve some other conflicts such as with the letters g or y).
Many thanks,
Adam
There might be some leads on this thread.
http://www.typophile.com/node/40729
Eben Sorkin, who started that thread, would probably have some ideas, too.
I am working on one right now. It has alternative j if preceded by g or j and shorter f if followed by idieresis or igrave.
Linux Libertine has been using this technique for some time now. I like this solution for issues in german where many ligatures are not welcome.
Crimson Text will use it too. In combination with german locl rules, this reduces the number of ligatures you would have to brake up manually.
Note that the dot on top of the i used by Nicolas Jenson was pushed to the right so that it wouldn't bump into the kern from a preceding f or long s. This avoided the need either for alternate forms or for ligatures - but this was seen as a failed solution, and since then, Roman types had ligatures, or, much later, buttonhook f's.
As mentioned in that other thread, Softmachine is predicated on this concept:
Not sure if this is appreciated here, but there is a font which is supposed to resemble Sabon by URW++ called Savoy and it has and fi ligature, where the f-descender is not touching the i. Available on fontspring.
My Grotext and Litteratra do a contextual replacement of f, and Tiptoe does the same for f and g. The less problematic short version is the default.
Jos Buivenga's Calluna & Sans do.
Christoph Dunst's Novel & Sans do.
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