Balava OpenType • A Transitional Typeface

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Bhikkhu Pesala
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Balava OpenType • A Transitional Typeface

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

Balava.png
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Balava version 1.60 improved spacing of Small and Petite Capitals, replaced stylistic alternates with character variants, and contextual ligatures with a stylistic set. Many more kerning pairs were added. Hinting was removed from the WOFF versions.

The default figures in Balava are proportional lining figures. There are OpenType glyphs for both Old Style (proportional) and Tabular (Lining Figures).

Typeface Sample

Please let me know if you spot any bugs or omissions.
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Re: Balava OpenType - A Transitional Typeface

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

Updated to version 1.10 to fix the kerning pairs for italics. Improved some italic ligatures, and added dlig for ffj, which got missed from the script earlier.
Italic Ligatures.png
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Re: Balava OpenType - A Transitional Typeface

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

Updated to version 1.13 to improve the spacing of superscripts, subscripts, and denominators, which were previously a fixed width.

Since the default figures are proportional, the other figures should be too.
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Re: Balava OpenType - A Transitional Typeface

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

Version 1.14 fixes a bug, and makes the design of the discretionary ligatures consistent across all four type styles.
Discretionary Ligatures.png
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Re: Balava OpenType - A Transitional Typeface

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

Version 1.15 improves the stacking diacritics for circumflex grave, uses the figures from the font for Dingbat Enclosed Numerics, and fixes some bugs. Kerning for Italics was also fixed.
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Re: Balava OpenType - A Transitional Typeface

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

Version 1.16 adds custom naming fields for Font subfamily in several languages, so Regular, Italic, Bold, Bold Italic is now obyčejné, kurzíva, tučné, and tučné kurzíva in Czech. I assume that what Windows does is detect the locale and show the appropriate subfamily name in font dialogues.
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Re: Balava OpenType - A Transitional Typeface

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

Version 1.30 completes the Latin Extended Additional, Currency Symbols, Number Forms, and Dingbats character sets for Unicode 8.0, improves the spacing for lowercase bold italic, and adds smaller Web and WOFF versions with only a few symbols.

I forgot to change the version number, so this is still 1.30. I add one currency symbol, and a Titling Capitals feature using GPOS. Although this doesn't work yet in PagePlus it's the right way to do this, instead of bloating the font with lots of rarely used glyphs.

Strictly speaking, titling capitals should be slightly lighter than regular capitals as well as more widely spaced, but I have made do with just increasing the spacing by 10%.

My Pali font contains true Titling Capitals using GSUB.
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Re: Balava OpenType - A Transitional Typeface

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

Updated to version 1.32 to improve the precedence of OpenType features (standard ligatures no longer need to be disabled to use small capitals or petite capital features), and fixed a bug in the Bold Italic style where Caps to Small Caps changed { to [. I found the bug because the Overview panel showed one unused glyph.

Upgrading is recommended.
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Re: Balava OpenType - A Transitional Typeface

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

Version 1.40 benefits from the many improved features in FontCreator 10.1, which made it easier to spot errors and adjust kerning pairs.
  • I have added two glyphs for Dutch. Ligature fij ensures that fi ligature is not used in words like fijn (nice) where the ij is a ligature, and an ij acute ligature that replaces j with jacute after iacute. There is no jacute in Unicode.
  • I have reduced the size of cedilla and ogonek accents for Petite Capitals and Small Capitals. Lowprofile accents already reduce the size of accents in composites for Petite Capitals.
  • I have fixed some Greek glyphs like Omega, Theta, and Phi to match the width of Omicron
  • I added the Romanian Language for Localised forms of Şş and Ţţ cedilla. Romanian prefers the use of comma accent below, although users still often type the cedilla forms.
  • I used my tip on Checking for Errors to spot missing kerning pairs, or badly designed glyphs that caused clashes like j caron or j circumflex. (The release version of CompositeData.xml uses a lowprofile caron for j caron, but a regular circumflex for j circumflex. That's my own error. Follow the Complete Composites tutorial thread for updates).
  • Some Maths Operators were resized to fit the CapHeight
  • Web versions were added with only a few symbols, no Alternative Fractions, and no Petite Capitals. They do, however, include Small Capitals, and many other OpenType features, and they are hinted.
  • Currency symbols for Turkish Lira and Georian Lari were redesigned using the SVG files on Wikipedia as a starting point.
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Re: Balava OpenType - A Transitional Typeface

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

Another update to fix some bugs, improve kerning classes, and add more kerning pairs.
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Re: Balava OpenType - A Transitional Typeface

Post by Erwin Denissen »

You've been busy. I'll take a closer look later this week.
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Re: Balava OpenType - A Transitional Typeface

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

Version 1.50 improved the design of glyphs with ogonek accents and added four more for Nordic, E and O ogonek with acute. One more Stylistic Alternate Set was also added.
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Re: Balava OpenType - A Transitional Typeface

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

Balava version 1.60 improved spacing of Small and Petite Capitals, replaced stylistic sets with character variants, and contextual ligatures with a stylistic set. Many more kerning pairs were added. Hinting was removed from the WOFF versions.
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Re: Balava OpenType - A Transitional Typeface

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

Version 1.70 replaced Romanian localised forms with a Stylistic Set. Irony punctuation reversed question mark is a Standard Ligature substitution for ??, while Interrobang replaces ?! and inverse interrobang replaces ¿¡. Super/subscript glyphs (×÷) and thin space were added for use with fractions. Kerning pairs were added for subscripts and fractions that use them. Character Variants were improved and are now included in the Web and WOFF versions.
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Re: Balava OpenType - A Transitional Typeface

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

Version 1.80 fixed some bugs with kerning of ligatures, fi, fl, etc., and improved the spacing of Qu discretionary ligature.
Version 1.81 further improved kerning pairs and added glyphs for Bitcoin, and Stupa and Pagoda (in Transport and Map Symbols).
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