Glyph design: the lowercase w and y

o
i
a

b
l
n

d p q
e
f
v
h u m
r

c
j
t
y
w
x

k
z

g
s

Just like how you can easily derive ‘p’, ‘d’, and ‘q’ from the ‘b’, and ‘h’, ‘m’, and ‘u’ from the ‘n’, ‘w’ and ‘y’ can be quickly made from the lowercase ‘v’ glyph. Both letters contain the ‘v’ in them, only slightly modified.

Components of a lowercase ‘w’. The ‘w’ is essentially a ligature of two ‘v’s.

The letter ‘w’ can really be thought of as a ligature of two ‘v’s. In fact, in many languages, the name of the letter is “double-v” (English calls the letter “double-u” since when it was invented, ‘u’ and ‘v’ were still the same letter). Because of that, many typefaces render the letter as two slightly overlapping ‘v’s. Like the ‘m’ which is typographically composed of two ‘n’s, the ‘w’ is very slightly compressed (though not to any noticeable extent).

Garamond (left), Sabon (center), and Hoefler (right) all have ‘w’s composed from two ‘v’s.

A few typefaces omit the serif between the ‘v’s, like Minion and Bodoni. Warnock appears to be intermediate. This form generally has much more compression than the ‘vv’ form, usually applied to the outer strokes of the letter.

Glyph design: the lowercase c

o
i
a

b
l
n

d p q
e
f
v
h u m
r

c
j
t
y
w
x

k
z

g
s

The letter ‘c’ is deceptively simple. It is a single open curve, and much of the design work on this letter is purely visual so there are few pointers I can give you.

The bottom half of the ‘c’ is almost identical to that of the letter ‘e’. But instead of closing off into a loop, the top of the curve finishes off in a terminal, usually with blobbing. The top left of the letter is often flattened slightly.

Glyph design: the lowercase t

o
i
a

b
l
n

d p q
e
f
v
h u m
r

c
j
t
y
w
x

k
z

g
s

The letter ‘t’ seems visually tricky to design, though it is actually one of the easier letters to make. In many sans serif and a few didone typefaces, the entire letter can be derived from the ‘f’ with minimal modification. This is generally not true in transitional and “older” type, though the cross stroke can still be inherited from the ‘f’, and the letter’s finial is easy enough to draw, making the ‘t’ a rather low hanging fruit in terms of type design.

Components of a lowercase ‘t’

The ‘t’ is not a complex letter. It consists of a single vertical stem that terminates in a curved finial extending about as far as its cross stroke does. The finial is almost always somewhat right-skewed (meaning it’s sharpest part lies to the left of the middle of the letter) and except in decorative typefaces, it never has a blob or serif. The shape is often reminiscient of the shoulder of the ‘n’ or ‘u’. The stem of the ‘t’ is crossed by a cross stroke—it is almost always identical to the one found on the ‘f’, though rarely, it lies a fraction of a hairline higher than the cross stroke on the ‘f ’ does. The most interesting part of the ‘t’ is the relation between the cutoff of the stem and the left side of the cross stroke.

The forest and the trees: How to test your font

As I’ve said before, it’s important to periodically combine your glyphs into words and see how they work together. You should already be examining your typeface at the word level. At this point, Floribunda has enough letters that we can also start assembling short test texts. Test texts can be as long as a paragraph or even a page, but for now, we’re just looking for problems at the line level. A few issues I saw right off the bat was that the ‘f’ terminal was a bit too light, and the spur of the ‘a’ too thin.

A test text for Floribunda. Test texts don’t necessarily have to make sense,
they just simulate font usage at the line, paragraph or page level.

I also wasn’t a fan of the bowls on the ‘b’ and derived letters, so I redrew them with fresh curves.

Glyph design: the lowercase r

o
i
a

b
l
n

d p q
e
f
v
h u m
r

c
j
t
y
w
x

k
z

g
s

At the most basic level, ‘r’ can be grouped with ‘h’, ‘m’, and ‘u’ as letters that share characteristics with the letter ‘n’. Indeed, in many sans serif typefaces, the ‘r’ is almost made by literally slicing off the right side of an ‘n’. However, particularly in serif type, the ‘r’ is distinct enough from its siblings that it warrants separate treatment.

Components of a lowercase ‘r’.

The stem of the letter is taken straight from the left side of the ‘n’, with little modification. However, the terminal of the ‘r’ (sometimes called an ear, though the term is usually reserved for the thing on the serif ‘g’) is much heavier, and the shoulder much steeper than the corresponding parts of the letter ‘n’. On top of that, finding an attractive shape for the ball terminal on the letter can be a challenge in itself, given the lack of space from the narrow shape of the letter.

Keeping your letters in line

It's very important in type design to make sure all your letters are the same height. Otherwise, subtle irregularities might accumulate, and you might not notice if a letter is getting taller or shorter than it should be. This is why you should set up fontforge guidelines early in your design process.

The most important guideline to set is the meanline. This is the height that most of the lowercase letters should reach to. The meanline should align with the top edge of the lowercase ‘v’ or any other flat-topped lowercase letter. You set the meanline in fontforge by dragging down from the ruler at the top of the glyph window. Make sure you round the guideline to an integer!

You should also set the over and undershoot guidelines—use a round letter like ‘o’ or ‘e’ to determine where it should go.

The round parts of every curved letter—that includes the ‘a’, ‘b’, ‘c’, ‘d’, ‘e’, ‘g’, ‘h’, ‘m’, ‘n’, ‘o’, ‘p’, ‘q’, ‘r’, ‘s’, ‘t’, and ‘u’—should touch these lines. So should any pointy letters like ‘v’ and ‘w’, which should have an undershoot, and any letter with a head serif including ‘i’ and ‘j’, which should have an overshoot. In theory, pointier shapes should under/overshoot more than curved shapes, but the bevel on the vertex of the ‘v’ makes this necessary. However, I do have my sharp head serifs extend three font units beyond the curve overshoot.

You should also put guidelines into place for the ascenders and the descenders, and any other useful heights.

Glyph design: lowercase letters with legs (h m u)

o
i
a

b
l
n

d p q
e
f
v
h u m
r

c
j
t
y
w
x

k
z

g
s

The letters ‘h’, ‘m’, and ‘u’ mean something slightly different to type designers than they do to most people. These letters can be grouped together because they can all be very easily derived from the lowercase ‘n’. You could also include ‘r’, but the ‘r’ is slightly trickier to make, so that will be in another post.

Components of a lowercase ‘h’ and ‘m’.

Components of a lowercase ‘u’

As with the ‘p’, ‘d’, and ‘q’, passable versions of ‘h’ and ‘m’ can be made just by copying and extending parts from the letter ‘n’. The ‘h’ is largely an ‘n’ with a raised ascender, and the ‘m’ can be built by fusing two ‘n’s together.

And just like with the ‘p’, ‘d’, and ‘q’, there are small changes that will make these letters better. The shoulder of the ‘h’ is often rounder and less steep than that of the ‘n’ (though I made the ‘n’s shoulder rounder too). The ‘h’ is also very slightly wider than the ‘n’. The ‘m’ really is in many ways just an ‘n’ with an extra arc and stem, though the letter is usually slightly compressed so that it isn't literally a ligature of two ‘n’s. Key word—slightly—many designers overdo it on the compression and make ‘m’s that are too dense. The ‘m’ compression is very subtle—often just a small fraction (one fifth?) of the stem width. Remember that serifs on the inside of a letter are slightly shorter than on the outside.