bugFree UCS Outline Fonts - Bugs: bug #58308, Suggestions on selected Cyrillic...

 
 

bug #58308: Suggestions on selected Cyrillic characters. Part 1: the Omega

Submitter:  Matvei Davydov <matt_d>
Submitted:  Wed 06 May 2020 08:26:38 AM UTC
   
 
Category:  individual character(s) Severity:  3 - Normal
Item Group:  glyph(s) ugly Status:  Fixed
Privacy:  Public Assigned to:  Stevan_White
Open/Closed:  Open Release:  * development
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Mon 11 May 2020 06:04:50 AM UTC, comment #9: 

Hi Steve,

It sounds good. Thank you!

But could you show, how they look like now? I mean the both letters - the Omega and the Ot.

Matvei Davydov <matt_d>
Sun 10 May 2020 12:58:00 PM UTC, comment #8: 

Hi Matvei,

I already dealt with the issue of stem width, and I already made the small Omega narrower, as I explained.

In some of the images of printed work you provided, the small omega has no serifs, although the font is otherwise serifed.  And the Unicode samples show no serifs on ths small letter, but serifs on the capital.  I have already implemented that.  It looks pretty good.

I also adjusted the T sign on the Ot to be both more like the images you sent of printed books, and also more like the Unicode samples.  This is rather different from your proposal, which I think is taken from a modern computer font.

Steve White <Stevan_White>
Group administrator
Sun 10 May 2020 12:26:01 PM UTC, comment #7: 

Steve, take a look at the new images, please.
The first one shows my proposal for the Omega character, and the second one for the Ot character.

Certainly, both images are nothing more but drafts. They express my ideas; all the details (forms, metrics, etc.) we can discuss later.

As for me, I can't say I like much the overall result for the Ot character. I mean I don't like the serif and stem of the superscrict T. They are too wide now, I think. From the other hand now they fit the serif and stem of the lower Omega.

Maybe you notice at the images other controversies as well. That's okay. I think the more unpleasnt things we find while discussing the Ot character form, the better the result would be.


Matvei Davydov <matt_d>
Sun 10 May 2020 07:59:14 AM UTC, comment #6: 

Hi Steve,

I'm afraid, we still misunderstand each other. So, I'm asking you, please, do nothing with the glyphs till we solve all the problems.

>On review of the letters (which are my own, simply following the Standard's
>samples), it struck me that the small 'ot' was much wider than 'ш', or than
>Latin 'w'.  Moreover, in none of your images, nor in the (current) Unicode
>samples, does the small letter have serifs (although the rare bird has serifs
>in the Samples).
>
>I will remove the serifs from the small 'ot', and make its stems similar in
>proportions to the 'ш'.  I'll leave the big one alone.
>

Please, don't do that. I'll try to explain.
1. The small letter Ot should be similar in proportions and the overall look to the capital one. They both should be narrow and should have serifs in the upper part of the Omega. I definitely have seen the Omega character with the serifs in its upper part. I'll try to find the images.
2. Both small and capital letters should remain narrower that the 'Ш'. The reason is simple - since the 19th and the early 20th centuries some letters changed its metrics. 'Ш' is much wider now than it was 100-150 years ago.


>Unfortunately, it's still unclear to me exactly what it is about the original
>design that bothers you.
>

I think it would be better if I draw a special image. I'll post it here in a couple of hours.

>As to the titlo:
>
>In image 01.PNG, it appears to me to be almost identical in width and
>proportion to the top of the Cyrillic 'т'.  The only difference in shape to
>the current design in FF is that FF has serifs on the center stem.  With the
>senter serifs, the mark is a little busy, and on top of the 'ot', it's awfully
>busy.  I'll get rid of those center serifs.
>

Steve, I should stress it again - it's not a titlo, it is the Ot character itself (the lower part of it is an Omega character and the upper part is a superscript T character). So, please, do not touch its center serif.
And if you want to look at the 'titlo' sign, you can find it at the same image on the right, over the small letters 'г' and 'д'.

>The big surprise to me is that in 01.PNG, a mark identical to the titlo
>appears following ѧ, in two places!  I see nothing in the Standard like
>this.  Is this just a variant of a form in the Cyrillic Extended B range?  Or
>are we seeing grounds for a new range "Cyrillic Extended C"?
>
>Does Unicode suffice to encode all the letters and marks in these books?  (It
>*should*.)
>

There is nothing strange here, Steve. It's an ordinary superscript T. Nobody uses such approach to denoting the superscripts in the text for ages, now in such cases scientists prefer using the italic forms or the underlines.

Matvei Davydov <matt_d>
Sat 09 May 2020 07:35:37 AM UTC, comment #5: 

Thanks for these images, Matvei!  I think I hadn't seen so many examples of this letter before!

I would encourage you to post more examples here!

Unfortunately, it's still unclear to me exactly what it is about the original design that bothers you.

On review of the letters (which are my own, simply following the Standard's samples), it struck me that the small 'ot' was much wider than 'ш', or than Latin 'w'.  Moreover, in none of your images, nor in the (current) Unicode samples, does the small letter have serifs (although the rare bird has serifs in the Samples).

I will remove the serifs from the small 'ot', and make its stems similar in proportions to the 'ш'.  I'll leave the big one alone.

As to the titlo:

In image 01.PNG, it appears to me to be almost identical in width and proportion to the top of the Cyrillic 'т'.  The only difference in shape to the current design in FF is that FF has serifs on the center stem.  With the senter serifs, the mark is a little busy, and on top of the 'ot', it's awfully busy.  I'll get rid of those center serifs.

The top of the titlo mark is even with capitol letters, and with tall letters such as б and ꙋ.

The big surprise to me is that in 01.PNG, a mark identical to the titlo appears following ѧ, in two places!  I see nothing in the Standard like this.  Is this just a variant of a form in the Cyrillic Extended B range?  Or are we seeing grounds for a new range "Cyrillic Extended C"?

Does Unicode suffice to encode all the letters and marks in these books?  (It should.)



Steve White <Stevan_White>
Group administrator
Fri 08 May 2020 08:23:12 AM UTC, comment #4: 

Hi Steve,

Here are the examples of using the Ot letter in the scientific works. (i didn't take into consideration any religious books, because of the archaic fonts, that were used there).

The first image is from the paper of a Russian slavist Izmail Sreznevsky. It was published in 1866.

The second one is from the 1st volume of the Russian chroncles. It was published in 1928. Happily, I could find there not only a small letter, but a capital one either, which is an extremely 'rare bird'.

And the last one is from the 6th volume of medieval birch-bark letters. It was bublished in 1963.


Matvei Davydov <matt_d>
Thu 07 May 2020 03:55:24 PM UTC, comment #3: 

Hi Matvei,

I think your preferences are fairly clear.  I could do something like what you suggest, with some alterations.  But again, a personal preference is not sufficient.

Please provide me with images from printed books.  I would like to see a variety of diffeent options, and reasons to prefer one form or another in this situation (besides personal preference).

Steve White <Stevan_White>
Group administrator
Thu 07 May 2020 02:15:58 PM UTC, comment #2: 

Hi Steve,

комментарий №1:

> Hi,
>
> 1)
>
> Problem 1. (Omegha) I see what you mean. The style doesn't really fit the rest of the font.  This letter was my own design, so I have no qualms about altering it.  So I'll go ahead and change it.
>

Thank you! I'm looking forward to viewing a redisigned variant.

> Problem 2 (Ot).  I don't understand what you are complaining about.  You provide two images of the character from modern fonts.  The Tempora one resembles the FreeFont one very much -- where the "titlo" is based very much on a capital 'T'.  In the Times one, the titlo is much reduced and stylized.  Are you saying you just prefer the Times one?  I'm not convinced.  Also, from your examples, I'm unclear as to whether tha parts of the glyph should be spaced more, or less.
>

I'm really sorry for my poor English. So, I decided it would be better to add some new pics now. On the first one I denoted the things that need to be redisigned. On the second I tried to apply myself (roughly. of course) the most necessary changes. And on the third one I tried to go furhter and lessen the height of the upper T to the desirable scale (I should add, the upper T is some sort of superscript, so it is not a 'titlo').

> 2) Generally, in this project, we don't follow how other modern computer fonts do things.  We would much rather see images of traditional typesetting.
>

I used the screenshot from the Times New Roman font just as an example of 'flat' upper T. Nothing more.

> 3) (just for better communications) the technical word for what you are calling "lines" is "stems".  I wasn't sure from the text just what you were referring to.
>

Thank you for mentioning that. Sometines it's really hard for me to find and choose right technical terms.


Matvei Davydov <matt_d>
Wed 06 May 2020 06:47:01 PM UTC, comment #1: 

Hi,

1)

Problem 1. (Omegha) I see what you mean. The style doesn't really fit the rest of the font.  This letter was my own design, so I have no qualms about altering it.  So I'll go ahead and change it.

Problem 2 (Ot).  I don't understand what you are complaining about.  You provide two images of the character from modern fonts.  The Tempora one resembles the FreeFont one very much -- where the "titlo" is based very much on a capital 'T'.  In the Times one, the titlo is much reduced and stylized.  Are you saying you just prefer the Times one?  I'm not convinced.  Also, from your examples, I'm unclear as to whether tha parts of the glyph should be spaced more, or less.

2) Generally, in this project, we don't follow how other modern computer fonts do things.  We would much rather see images of traditional typesetting.

3) (just for better communications) the technical word for what you are calling "lines" is "stems".  I wasn't sure from the text just what you were referring to.

Steve White <Stevan_White>
Group administrator
Wed 06 May 2020 08:26:38 AM UTC, original submission:  

Hi Steve,

In the latest development build you changed the look of the Cyrillic Omega, and you were absolutely right doing that; so now both upper- and lower-case Omegas look much better.
But two problems still exist.

Problem 1.
Refers to: Cyrillic capital letter Omega (U+0460), Cyrillic small letter Omega (U+0461), Cyrillic capital letter Ot (U+047E), Cyrillic small letter Ot ( U+047F).
The problem may refer also to other Omegas (Broad Omega and Omega with Titlo), but frankly speaking I haven't met anyone, who uses such 'exotic' characters, and I'm in doubt, if anybody really needs them.

Descpription of the problem: as for now in FreeSerif the lines in the bottom part of Omega have similar width. In comparison with lower-case Ot from Kryukov's Tempora LGC Uni the last one has here distinctively visible wide and narrow lines, and that's why the character itself in his font looks much more elegant. See the first picture attached.

Problem 2:
Refers to: Cyrillic capital letter Ot (U+047E), Cyrillic small letter Ot ( U+047F).

Descpription of the problem: as for now in FreeSerif there is too much space between the upper T and lower Omega. They should be placed closer. Moreover, the upper T itself is too high and too wide, but there is absolutely no need to make the upper T clear visible. It would be enough just to make it resembling the T. Please, take a look at the second picture attached: in Kryukov's Tempora LGC Uni upper T and lower Omega are placed much closer (but they are still far away one from another, and the upper T is too high either); and then take a look at the upper T shape in Times New Roman, where the upper T is extremely small, but still distinctive.

Is it possible to apply those things in FreeSerif?

Matvei Davydov <matt_d>

 

(Note: upload size limit is set to 16384 kB, after insertion of the required escape characters.)

Attach Files:
   
   
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Attached Files
file #49053:  Omega.jpg added by matt_d (101KiB - image/jpeg)
file #49054:  Ot.jpg added by matt_d (423KiB - image/jpeg)
file #49039:  01.JPG added by matt_d (194KiB - image/jpeg)
file #49040:  02.JPG added by matt_d (210KiB - image/jpeg)
file #49041:  03.JPG added by matt_d (52KiB - image/jpeg)
file #49025:  Ot_1.jpg added by matt_d (101KiB - image/jpeg)
file #49026:  Ot_2.jpg added by matt_d (71KiB - image/jpeg)
file #49027:  Ot_3.jpg added by matt_d (83KiB - image/jpeg)
file #49005:  Omega_1.JPG added by matt_d (89KiB - image/jpeg)
file #49006:  Omega_2.JPG added by matt_d (62KiB - image/jpeg)

 

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    Follow 14 latest changes.

    Date Changed by Updated Field Previous Value => Replaced by
    2020-09-02 Stevan_White StatusProceeding Fixed
    2020-05-10 matt_d Attached File- Added Omega.jpg, #49053
        Attached File- Added Ot.jpg, #49054
    2020-05-09 Stevan_White StatusNeed info Proceeding
    2020-05-08 matt_d Attached File- Added 01.JPG, #49039
        Attached File- Added 02.JPG, #49040
        Attached File- Added 03.JPG, #49041
    2020-05-07 matt_d Attached File- Added Ot_1.jpg, #49025
        Attached File- Added Ot_2.jpg, #49026
        Attached File- Added Ot_3.jpg, #49027
    2020-05-06 Stevan_White StatusNone Need info
        Assigned toNone Stevan_White
    2020-05-06 matt_d Attached File- Added Omega_1.JPG, #49005
        Attached File- Added Omega_2.JPG, #49006

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