Icelandic Question

dberlow18 Apr 2011

So, I'm building a template for the features and hierarchy of all the glyphs in the Latin-1 layout and I have a question about the Icelandic eth.

Vertically, the character has two parts, the bowl below and the crossed ascender.

As the resolution descends and there are not enough pixels, is it better to lower the height of the bowl and give additional pixels to the ascender, or is it better to let the ascender just become a blob of undistinguished but fairly unique pixels so the bowl can remain at the x-height, from an Icelandic point of view?

Thanks in advance for any insights.

clauses18 Apr 2011#

Lowering the bowl is better.

jasonc18 Apr 2011#

Thank you, I've often wondered about this one. I usually end up straightening the crossbar at small sizes.

jason

hrant18 Apr 2011#

Third option (not necessarily/always recommended): break the EM - let the ascender rise. The UC accents do that after all.

BTW, one way to "lower" the bowl is to keep the top at the x-line but make the bowl more teardrop-shaped, like here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ohbendy/5462601945

hhp

dberlow18 Apr 2011#

>Lowering the bowl is better.

I thought you're Danish. How do I know you're not out to make trouble.

hrant18 Apr 2011#

It's like Palin with Russia. ;-)

hhp

Scriptor Abbatiſſæ18 Apr 2011#

If you have really short ascenders, how do you even distinguish thorn from wynn?

hrant18 Apr 2011#

That seems much less problematic than "h" vs "n", because of frequency as well as deviation below the middle of the x-height.

hhp

Nick Shinn18 Apr 2011#

Briem drops it below the x-height:
http://www.fontshop.com/fonts/singles/creative_alliance/briem_mono_bold/

That's also what I do when things get tight.

There are some other glyphs where there is a precedent for this kind of technique, eg Cyrillic б and ф.
It's also common practice for "g" in many sans faces (raising the bowl above the baseline to accommodate the extender business).

clauses18 Apr 2011#

I thought you're Danish. How do I know you're not out to make trouble.

We are vikings, would we ever cause trouble?

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