edentJul 29, 2023

Shakespeare Serif - an experimental font based on the First Folio

I've built a new font! Thoughts and feedback on my approach very welcome. #font #woff2 #python

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2023/07/shakespeare-serif-a-new-font-based-on-the-first-folio/

Shakespeare Serif - an experimental font based on the First Folio

Disclaimer! Work In Progress! See source code. I recently read this wonderful blog post about using 17th Century Dutch fonts on the web. And, because I'm an idiot, I decided to try and build something similar using Shakespeare's first folio as a template. Now, before setting off on a journey, it is worth seeing if anyone else has tried this before. I found David Pustansky's First Folio Font. There's not much info about it, other than it's based on the 1623 folio. It's a nice font, but missing …

Terence Eden’s Blog
Show threadBumblefumble
Do modern day fonts even support automatic ligatures? How does that work? Or are there Unicode symbols for them?
Jul 29, 2023 at 3:01pmWeb
Show threadedentJul 29, 2023

Both! Unicode has some support for as-is ligatures. For example fi is U+FB01.

Modern fonts can also use self-defined ligatures. That's how fonts like https://www.sansbullshitsans.com/

So my plan is (eventually) to add in ligatures where Unicode has defined them - and automatically replace typed text with self-defined ligatures where it doesn't.

Sans Bullshit Sans — Leveraging the synergy of ligatures

A font that'll get rid of all the bullshit.

Show threadfearoutJul 29, 2023

Of course they do, better than ever actually. Google OpenType ligatures, for example. You can even use those on the web using CSS.

Some fonts have hundreds of different ligatures.

Show threadwinetyJul 29, 2023

Yes, they do. Part of the OpenType standard are the so called “OpenType features” which (amongst other things) allow for contextual alternates, i.e. different kinds of ligatures, and for stylistic alternates, e.g. a slashed zero, a single-storey ɑ, etc. All of these different glyphs are encoded in the font and can be enabled when typesetting using different selectors. This website shows them off.

Some ligatures, like “ffl”, are a separate character in Unicode. Some were added because they can be considered a different character in languages other than English, but some (like “ffl”) were added because of legacy reasons and “no more will be encoded in any circumstances”.

otf.show

An interactive showcase of OpenType features