Font Forum

I am, from time to time, adding calligraphic glyphs to a font.

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2957

I am trying to produce a few designs for a th ligature glyph, such that there is a connecting curve between what starts as two upward-going parallel lines.

Designs could have zero, one or more crossover places.

Do readers have any ideas on some designs for the curves to produce a th ligature please?

William Overington

18 March 2010

I would suggest the crossbar on the "t" being flourished towards the left, going up and over the top, crossing the ascender on the "h" and looping back and down to form the ascender. I did a quick mockup from an italic of mine - not even remotely trying to do it well. I've updated it to a bit more polished version.

Thank you for the suggestion.

Here is a graphic showing what I had designed before starting this thread.

I copied two of the glyphs that I had already produced previously and then tried to produce a ligature glyph from them, by joining them together and then moving various parts.

I thought that the result was not very effective and so I started this thread.

Maybe the idea of starting with two parallel lines and then joining them together with a loop or loops is not going to be an effective way to produce a stylish calligraphic glyph.
William Overington

20 March 2010

I have now published the Sonnet Calligraphic 015 font in the Sonnet Calligraphic thread in the Gallery section of this forum.

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2957

The font includes seven attempts at a th ligature.

There is the experiment with a loop joining displayed in the previous post in this thread.

U+E5D7 Alt 58839 th ligature with loop

There are also six experimental ligatures using a cusp joining.

U+E5D9 Alt 58841 th ligature with cusp
U+E5DA Alt 58842 th ligature with crossover and cusp

U+E5DD Alt 58845 th ligature with cusp and spiral
U+E5DE Alt 58846 th ligature with crossover and cusp and spiral
U+E5DF Alt 58847 th ligature with cusp and raised spiral
U+E5E0 Alt 58848 th ligature with crossover and cusp and raised spiral

The raised spiral versions are so as to avoid a clash with a following letter with an ascender, such as the second h in the word thoughtful.

The original spiral was a copy of the spiral used in the h used in the word calligraphy in the following illustration.
William Overington

22 March 2010