IBM Plex Sans JP: Initial reactions

[johnnyshields]

Overall, I'm blown away by how good IBM Plex Sans JP is--it's an instant classic.

If I had to make criticisms:

• the hiragana characters (あいうえお etc.) feel slightly too small (relative to kanji) and it gives the feeling of broken/disjointed kerning in some places. Some of the ascents/descents don't feel correctly aligned between neighboring characters. Compare vs TBUD Gothic, the latter just feels more snug:

• in katakana, consider adding clear/more even separation on the diacritic marks. Compare vs TBUD Gothic:

• や is easier to read with the 2nd stroke intersecting the 1st stroke

• け, に etc. the stroke serifs feel a bit too sharp. I get that these are "plex-ish" but would experiment with a softer angle / shorter stroke. Would recommend to omit it on に

• The kanji 言 feels too wide and hard to read.

• The kanji 成 is easier to read with a steeper oriented accent stroke.

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[mjabbink]

FYI @sandoll-inc

[sandoll-inc]

Relatively, JP is designed so that dots and strokes fill character face frames compared to other JP fonts. This is to keep the letters homogeneous in size and to use small spaces efficiently. Of course, we also thought it was important to reflect IBM Plex's legacy, "Engineering Respecting the trajectory of Writing.” Thank you for your detailed response to Plex JP’s design. We will collect your opinions on the design for the time being.

[johnnyshields]

@sandoll-inc thank you for your comments:

Relatively, JP is designed so that dots and strokes fill character face frames compared to other JP fonts.

Specifically regarding hiragana, the two examples above (TBUD Gothic Std R and MPlus 2) both do a better job filling the frame, and the stokes are better aligned between neighboring characters. I particularly encourage you to study TBUD Gothic from Morisawa, I feel it is a good model for Plex.

[mjabbink]

Top: IBM Plex Sans JP Middle: Hiragino Kaku gothic(MacOS bundle font) Bottom: Kozuka gothic(Adobe bundle font)

Still looking into some other feedback mentioned above.

[mjabbink]

言 and 成 are more a concern and I think in future updates we could address these.

[johnnyshields]

@mjabbink In your examples of katakana it still feels like Plex "fills the frame" less than the other fonts.

[mjabbink]

In reviewing some of the feedback the Sandoll designers and I feel the current Plex JP designs are very valid as they are. We have documented this feedback and will revisit as we collect more feedback and assess again in the near future but for now we will maintain these designs. We are limited in budget and have Chines to complete and also will prioritize adding a CJK JP and KR set with shared baseline eights and the same scale Latin.

We will wait and collect a larger sum of glyphs to refine so the above feedback may be included at that time.