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IBM / plex

The package of IBM’s typeface, IBM Plex.
SIL Open Font License 1.1
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Please consider removing the small stroke on the side of the ß in IBM Plex Mono #486

Closed th-bu closed 2 years ago

th-bu commented 2 years ago

At the moment the ss05-ß in the Mono font has a small stroke on the left:

grafik

This is not a feature of the ß in the german alphabet. I guess it's there for spacing reasons but it just looks very weird.

BoldMonday commented 2 years ago

One simply cannot claim that the horizontal bar is not a feature of the letter ß.

There is a big variety how the letter ß can be designed and what letters it tries to refer to. In this case of Plex Mono it has been designed as a ligature between the letter long s ſ and the letter short s s. The long s traditionally has a horizontal bar on the left and therefore that bar has been preserved in our design.

There are plenty of typefaces that contain a similar construction, including the most successful German typeface of all times – Paul Renner’s Futura. Please see the word Handgießer below.

image

twardoch commented 2 years ago

The ß form used in Plex Sans is slightly antiquated, but it has a long history in German writing and typemaking.