Sonnet Calligraphic

Gallery
1

Having been inspired by the Maestro Pro font, I decided to experiment with producing a font with some calligrapic ligatures and swash alternates.

This is not an OpenType font at this time, it is just a TrueType font with some glyphs for ligatures and some glyphs for alternates mapped into the Unicode Private Use Area.

I started with a copy of my Sonnet to a Renaissance Lady font.

Here is an transcript from my notes.

Keep the metrics as 2048, 0, -1024 and note them here.

Lower the upper part of the t by 512 (=1408 - 896) font units, so that the top of the bar on the t aligns with the top of most of the lowercase letters that do not have an ascender. This is not the x-height as such as the x is slightly taller.

Do the same in the ligature glyphs that include a t, though not those with a long s.

transcript ends

I then used the glyph transformer to scale all glyphs except for .notdef and null and nonmarkingreturn to 50% both horizontally and vertically without preserving the side bearings. I later realized that I should have done nonmarkingreturn as well, so I did that manually at that time.

Another transcript.

The type tray for special sorts in this font starts at U+E421 which is Alt 58401. Add 400 to give Alt 58801. That is U+E5B1.

Use U+E5B1 onward for these experiments with really swash glyphs.

Insert two glyphs, maps as U+E5B1 and U+E5B2 and run the Format Post… facility.

Copy the ct and st glyphs from U+E707 and U+FB06 into U+E5B1 and U+E5B2 respectively.

transcript ends.

I then designed the swash for the ct ligature at U+E5B1 directly in FontCreator.

I started using on-curve points and then converted all of them to off-curve. I could then move them as I desired.

This produced a contour that overlapped itself.

This problem was resolved by adding extra on-curve points at the right, using them to split the contour and then widening the gap at the split, then producing a union of the two contours, so that the overlapping problem was solved and a shape like an open round caliper was produced. This was then split at the right and various construction points deleted.

Then some on-curve points were added mid-way between the few pairs of adjacent off-curve points that remained, which did not affect the shape of the curves as an on-curve point mid-way between a pair of adjacent off-curve points is presumed in the rendering of a TrueType font: I just like to add them into the contour for completeness.

A rather large size is needed for the font, 48 point and 72 point seem good.

I have tested the font in Microsoft WordPad.

Alt 58801 for the calligraphic ct ligature and Alt 58802 for the calligraphic st ligature.

Some readers might like to copy the following and paste it into WordPad.

Distinctive Astrolabe Actually
Diinive Arolabe Aually
diinive arolabe aually

What I found pleasing was that although my design was really quite “mechanical” in that I started with a box of on-curve points to produce strips 64 font units wide and 32 font units wide, I got what seems to me quite a “fluid” calligraphic look when I converted the points to off-curve, and moving the two points at the top left of the loop to the right by 128 font units each was the only change I made. Even then 128 was chosen as a multiple of 64.

Thus far I am at stage 002. Stage 001 was just the basic altering of the letter t and the ligatures as mentioned previously.

Anyway, here is the font and I hope that some readers will enjoy giving it a try.
SONNC002.TTF
William Overington

23 January 2010

2

The Sonnet Calligraphic 003 font has now been produced.

This has eight more calligraphic glyphs.

Three of them are et, at and ot in the same style as the previous ct and st.

The other five are ct, st, et, at and ot all in the same new style of a much higher calligraphic curve that also has a loop in it.

The total of ten calligraphic ligatures are in U+E5B1 through to U+E5BA, Alt 58801 through to Alt 58810.

Here are the ten characters so that they can be copied and pasted into WordPad and then formatted using the Sonnet Calligraphic 003 font.



The new style with the loop is much more sweeping that the earlier style. Some words that looked good with the earlier style look wrong using this new style, so this new style needs to be used sparingly when appropriate in relation to the letters following the ligature.

I tried the following words in WordPad using Sonnet Calligraphic at 48 point.

action astronomy metasequoia patterned potential
aion aronomy masequoia pterned pential
aion aronomy masequoia pterned pential

This seems to work quite well, bearing in mind that the basic letters display at the same size as with the Sonnet to a Renaissance Lady font at 24 point. The 48 point size seems to be a necessary consequence of providing space for high calligraphic curves.

An interesting matter arose when using a copy of the new glyph for ct less the c part so as to try to build each of the other ligatures. That item is composed of three contours, namely an outer clockwise contour and two counterclockwise contours within it, yet the larger of those two counterclockwise contours having a clockwise bay, if bay is the correct term, into it. Trying to produce the joined st ligature resulted in the larger counterclockwise contour disappearing. The problem was solved by starting again and then moving the larger counterclockwise contour a thousand font units to the right, then performing the join, then moving the larger counterclockwise contour a thousand font units to the left. These large movements easily carried out by highlighting the contour, holding down the shift key and pressing the appropriate arrow key ten times.

Here is the font.
SONNC003.TTF
William Overington

25 January 2010

3

At various times I have added one or more glyphs to the font, for each session increasing the serial number of the development version of the font by 1.

Some readers might like the latest version.

Changes since version 003 are that 21 additional glyphs have been added.

These new glyphs are in U+E5BA through to U+E5CF.

I found that, once the font is installed, the glyphs can be displayed straightforwardly on a PC using WordPad by using Alt 58811 through to Alt 58831 respectively. I found 72 point to be a good size.

To me, some of them seem quite stylish. However, I have tried two versions of a swash e for use at the end of a word and neither seems, to me, to look entirely right aesthetically.

Here are some samples for copying and then pasting into WordPad and then formatting at 72 point using the font. One of them uses a ligature from previously.

reenage

elightful

asolute

auall

elow

iwi rui

i uino

The last example above is intended to have three spaces in front of it.

I am now trying to find out how to use VOLT to make an OpenType version of the font with the glyphs designated as alternate versions of the letters that they represent.

Also, I am wondering if an OpenType font can encode an alternate for a ligature.
SONNC010.TTF
William Overington

8 March 2010

4

The Sonnet Calligraphic 011 font adds one glyph, a calligraphic t at U+E5D0 Alt 58832.

This is a design different from the calligraphic t at U+E5BF Alt 58815.
SONNC011.TTF
William Overington

13 March 2010

5

I have produced typecase_ pdfs for the calligraphic alternates and for the calligraphic ligatures of the Sonnet Calligraphic 011 font.
typecase_Sonnet_Calligraphic_011_calligraphic_alternates.pdf
typecase_Sonnet_Calligraphic_011_calligraphic_ligatures.pdf
These can be useful for people trying to use the font with an application that does not have an Insert Symbol facility for characters that are not on the keyboard. I have found the pdfs to be useful when using Microsoft WordPad.

In order to use the typecase_ facility, please open the pdf and then highlight one or more characters and then copy them onto the clipboard and then paste from the clipboard into the application in the desired place. The character will then need to be formatted within the application so as to be set in the Sonnet Calligraphic 011 font. A font name is copied across but it is not the proper name of the font, so formatting in the application will be needed.

The source documents for the pdfs were each typeset using Sonnet Calligraphic 011 font at the 72 point size.

Readers who produce designs using the font are invited to upload them to this thread.

William Overington

13 March 2010

6

On Saturday I added one glyph to the font. It is a third calligraphic letter g. It is at U+E5D1 Alt 58833.

I added the glyph as I wanted to try typesetting the word greengage using three different calligraphic alternate letters g.

Here is the font.
SONNC012.TTF
Here is a typecase_ pdf that includes the new glyph.
typecase_Sonnet_Calligraphic_012_calligraphic_alternates.pdf
Here are three pdfs, each A3 size using CMYK colours, trying out various calligraphic glyphs.
greengage.pdf
apricot.pdf
strawberry.pdf
William Overington

15 March 2010

7

Here are some more pdfs, each A3 size using CMYK colours, trying out various calligraphic glyphs.
blueberry.pdf
aubergine.pdf
lemon.pdf
kiwi_fruit.pdf
William Overington

16 March 2010

8

Here are two more pdfs, each A3 size using CMYK colours, trying out various calligraphic glyphs.

These two are not based around the names of fruits, partly because I wanted to have a wider range of colours and also because I am thinking that if all nine pdfs were printed out at A3 size and displayed in an exhibition that these two could be used near the entrance.
calligraphy.pdf
artistic.pdf
Some readers might like to observe that artistic.pdf, like strawberry.pdf, displays an st ligature glyph, yet that the two st ligature glyphs are of two different designs.

William Overington

16 March 2010

9

I remember reading, in a book about the writing of poetry, that writing poetry is more popular than the reading of it.

It appears that many people write poetry, yet relatively few people read poetry written by others.

Is a similar situation true of making (hobbyist) fonts and looking at (hobbyist) fonts made by others and making (hobbyist) graphic art and looking at (hobbyist) graphic art made by others?

Consider please the three previous posts in this thread.

There are eleven downloads, with combined view and download figures respectively, as I write this post, of 1, 2, 2, 3, 2, and 2, 2, 2, 2 and 3, 3.

Now, once one knows that I downloaded the font to local storage to check that it was correct and that I downloaded each pdf to local storage to check that it was correct and also I opened each pdf to check that it displayed correctly on-line, and that I displayed apricot.pdf an extra time as I was checking something, one is left with the result that. apart from my checking, the download figures are as follows: 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 and 0, 0, 0, 0 and 1, 1.

Well, maybe people are not interested, yet I am somewhat puzzled by this as the SONNC003.TTF font has a download figure of 23, which is my downloading to local storage to check that it was correct and 22 others. Maybe some readers just looked at the font in fontviewer, yet maybe some readers downloaded the font and tried using it. Also, the view figures for the thread have increased steadily, being 282 as I write this post, though some of them are mine as I have been monitoring the download count from time to time.

I know that the font is only a hobbyist font yet I had thought that the techniques that I am exploring of making sweeping calligraphic ligatures and alternates using FontCreator would be of interest to at least some readers, particularly as I am trying to find out how to include alternate glyphs in an OpenType font. (I have thus far managed ligatures, yet not alternates).

However, I am genuinely puzzled as to why no readers have had a look at the seven pdfs that have the names of fruits.

William Overington

20 March 2010

10

Here is the Sonnet Calligraphic 015 font.
SONNC015.TTF
The Sonnet Calligraphic 015 font contains several more calligraphic glyphs than the Sonnet Calligraphic 012 font as follows.

U+E5D2 Alt 58834 Lowercase p with long decorated flourish
U+E5D3 Alt 58835 Lowercase k with curve under
U+E5D4 Alt 58836 Lowercase k with long curve under
U+E5D5 Alt 58837 Lowercase p with flourish
U+E5D6 Alt 58838 Lowercase h with spiral flourish
U+E5D7 Alt 58839 th ligature with loop
U+E5D8 Alt 58840 high calligraphic h
U+E5D9 Alt 58841 th ligature with cusp
U+E5DA Alt 58842 th ligature with crossover and cusp
U+E5DB Alt 58843 Lowercase pp ligature with long decorated flourish
U+E5DC Alt 58844 Lowercase pp ligature with flourish
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
U+E5E1 Alt 58849 y with crossover tail
U+E5E2 Alt 58850 high calligraphic lowercase l

Many of these alternates and ligatures are experimental, much like an electronic sketchbook of ideas.

The choice is then whether just to have them on one computer or to leave them in the font and publish them. In the event I have published them in the hope that these experiments might be of interest to some readers.

In relation to the design of the th ligatures, the following thread in the Type Design section of this forum may be of interest to some readers.

http://forum.high-logic.com:9080/t/designing-a-calligraphic-th-ligature/2762/1

William Overington

22 March 2010

11

Here is another pdf, A3 size using CMYK colours, trying out one of the calligraphic ligatures and one of the calligraphic alternate glyphs of the Sonnet Calligraphic 015 font, namely the lowercase pp ligature with flourish and the high calligraphic lowercase l.
apple.pdf
William Overington

22 March 2010

12

Here is a graphic made from the same source file that was used to produce the apple.pdf document.
apple.png
William Overington

23 March 2010

13

One of the great pleasures of making an experimental font is that one can add novel features as one thinks of them.

Thinking about what fruits could be added in to the range of example pdfs, I thought of blackberry and decided to try to make two experimental bl ligature glyphs, based on two of the th ligature glyphs, so that I could use a bl ligature in the word blackberry.

These are in the Sonnet Calligraphic 016 font at U+E5E3 Alt 58851 and U+E5E4 Alt 58852.
They were produced starting with copies of U+E5DF Alt 58847 th ligature with cusp and raised spiral and U+E5E0 Alt 58848 th ligature with crossover and cusp and raised spiral respectively. An interesting matter was to reduce the advance width from 512 font units to 384 font units as part of the process.

I have produced a blackberry.pdf document containing the word blackberry and also a blackberry.png graphic from the same source file. I then remembered that the word blueberry, used in the blueberry.pdf document that is available in this thread, also starts with the letters bl and so I looked back at how I had typeset the word blueberry in the blueberry.pdf document and decided to make a blueberry.png graphic to include here so that readers may, if they so choose, compare and contrast the two typesettings.
SONNC016.TTF
blackberry.pdf
blackberry.png
blueberry.png
William Overington

24 March 2010

14

At various times I have produced later versions of the font, adding extra glyphs, mostly on an experimental basis so as to learn as I proceeded.

Some readers might like a copy of the latest version.
SONNC020.TTF
In addition to the glyphs in the previous published version there are the following glyphs.

In U+E615 through to U+E62E are twenty-six capital letters. They can be accessed using Alt 58901 through to Alt 58926. I started with copies of the glyphs of the twenty-six capital letters from U+0041 through to U+005A and altered some of them. Thus far, seventeen of them have been altered so as to produce swash versions. I am wondering how to design the others.

In U+E5E5 through to U+E5EE are ten calligraphic glyphs. They are accessible as Alt 58853 through to Alt 58862. They are for t, b, h, k and lowercase l in each of two styles. I had experimented with the t versions and later adapted the designs for the other letters, which is why they are not in alphabetical order.

Here are the characters separated each from the next by a space.

         

They may well show as black rectangles here, yet readers who choose to download and install the font may well find that copying from this thread and pasting into Microsoft WordPad and then formatting using the font at 72 point will produce a display, though adding more spaces between the glyphs will be needed so as to produce a clear display.

I was experimenting with the techniques of using FontCreator as to whether such sweeping glyphs could be produced and with other packages as to whether they can be applied.

William Overington

16 April 2010

15

I have been experimenting with using the Sonnet Calligraphic 020 font in the Serif PagePlus desktop publishing program (version X3, which is not the latest version).

The source document is, for each example, a ppp file, a ppp file being a Serif proprietary format for PagePlus source documents. From the ppp file I produce a pdf and then I produce a png.

Some readers might like the following.
tomato.pdf
tomato.png
banana.pdf
banana.png
William Overington

17 April 2010

16

Whilst experimenting as in the previous post in this thread, I tried a design using the Lowercase p with long decorated flourish glyph from previously, which is also in the Sonnet Calligraphic 020 font.

The pdf seems fine. I have tried displaying it on screen, though not in hardcopy print.

However, the graphic, which is in the same size as the other graphics thus far displayed in this thread, does not seem to work too well, due to the fine line of the decoration within the flourish. However, the graphic is included here so as to show that effect.
pineapple.pdf
pineapple.png
William Overington

17 April 2010

17

Some readers might like these two print screen images made at 16% from FontCreator 5.6 and then made into graphic files using Microsoft Paint showing an early stage and the final stage of producing the Lowercase h with spiral flourish glyph. The first image has been reconstructed from the final stage of the glyph, but is as it was at the time of the original design.
early_stage.png
final_stage.png
The early stage image shows how a framework has been produced using straight lines. Verticals and horizontals are not the same width. The ascender is 64 font units wide and the vertical section at the right is 48 font units wide. The other sections are mostly 32 font units wide, though the tip of the spiral is not quite so wide.

The final stage image is then produced by changing the on-curve points of the calligraphic part to become off-curve points and then adding an on-curve point between adjacent off-curve points.

This adding of on-curve points is quite straightforward. Simply select a point on the contour and consider the next point in the clockwise diection. If both are off-curve points, key an a character so as to add an on-curve point between them: if either or both of them are on-curve points, then key a w character so as to move the selected point marker to the next point on the contour. The process is then repeated until every point on the contour has been considered.

In practice, a first design for the calligraphic part is designed, then the points of that part are all made off-curve and the design considered. The points are then made on-curve again and the design altered and then the points of that part are all made off-curve and the design reconsidered. This process is repeated until a design that is liked is produced, after which the adding of the extra on-curve points takes place.

I hope that this is of interest.

William Overington

17 April 2010

18

The two designs in this post were produced on Saturday 17 April 2010.

They show much the same design ideas as in some of the examples uploaded on that day, yet some readers may perhaps nonetheless find them of interest.
ecotown.pdf
ecotown.png
holly2.pdf
holly.png
William Overington

22 April 2010

19

If one tries to make a diagram, using the Sonnet Calligraphic 020 font, the diagram being of the same nature as the first diagram within the post in this thread that is timestamped as Sat Apr 17, 2010 4:58 pm, such that the new diagram would show the underlying construction of the calligraphic curve in the glyph at U+E5E6 in the Sonnet Calligraphic 020 font, then the resulting diagram does not show the structure as the design was intended. This being due to mistakes made in the process of producing the glyph.

Thus I decided to correct the design. The design is for a letter t. The glyphs at U+E5E8, U+E5EA, U+E5EC and U+E5EE (namely b, h, k and lowercase l) were each constructed using a copy of part of the glyph at U+E5E6, thus they needed correction as well.

There is little change to the overall visual display of the glyphs, yet I felt that I wanted to correct the errors, so I produced the Sonnet Calligraphic 021 font.
SONNC021.TTF
William Overington

29 April 2010

20

Here are diagrams of a calligraphic h produced using the Sonnet Calligraphic 021 font at 72 point in WordPad and of a reconstructed design in FontCreator showing an early stage of the design. The orange grid being used in FontCreator is at 256 font unit intervals. Both diagrams were produced by making a Print Screen and then pasting into Paint and then trimming and saving as a png graphic file.
a_calligraphic_h.png
early_stage_for_an_h.png
William Overington

1 May 2010