Ligatures for ff, fi, fl, ffi and ffl seem to be quite common, but I (being a copywriter, not a professional) cannot remember having ever seen a ligature for ffè -- which could be put to use in making a nice Italian caffè. Can anyone point me out to instances of this ligature (or other ligatures of an f followed by a letter with a grave accent)? Or is it inexistent? And if so, why would that be?
Thanks, Bart
There was at least a couple of threads about f- ligatures, especially regarding following diacritics.
For the sake of clarity, the best practice tends towards an alternate |f| with shorter overhanging.
Dear Riccardo,
Thanks for your reply. As I am new to Typophile.com, I do not know my way around yet. Could you tell me where those earlier threads are to be found?
I can see how an f with shortened terminal will leave room for the accent on a following è -- but why would one rather not have a ligature like the common fi-ligature? At least such a glyph would be less outlandish than this fó ligature...
As always one could/should make different decision based on the intended usage (text vs. display, for example).
Here are some old threads that could be of interest:
http://typophile.com/node/66818
http://typophile.com/node/40338
http://typophile.com/node/43879
http://typophile.com/node/40439
http://typophile.com/node/74143
The dot of an i is (with the exception of Turkish and Azerbaijani) not an accent and does not impart extra information, so it can be subsumed by the f without causing confusion. You want to be sure of whether you're looking at an accent or an unusual serif, because it changes what you read.
Actually in terms of readability the dot is all the poor "i" has got (although nothing is as dumb as the "el").
hhp
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