Various fleurons and Dingbats missing

[Alexander-Wilms]

I'm trying to create a facsimile of the Egenolff-Berner specimen and noticed that most of the ornamental Dingbats are missing in this typeface.

and a mirrored version, partially cut off in specimen

The ornamental stamps at the bottom would be nice to have, as well:

etc.

[georgd]

Interesting project. I didn’t get as far as you in my try :)

I think, I found the stamps from the border in another revival font. Perhaps it was in the Fell Flowers font by Igino Marini: https://iginomarini.com/fell/the-revival-fonts/

[Alexander-Wilms]

Thanks for the info.

However, it seems like the Fell Flowers font only contains some of the stamp configurations seen in the EB specimen and the license does not allow modification.

Would these be in scope for EB Garamond? I could try to vectorize them.

[timgrei]

Thanks for the info.

However, it seems like the Fell Flowers font only contains some of the stamp configurations seen in the EB specimen and the license does not allow modification.

Would these be in scope for EB Garamond? I could try to vectorize them.

I have also thought about vectorizing them. I think the Fell Flowers are just automatically traced, I can't understand, why you are not allowed to modify. In the books of Jean de Tournes there are thousands more of those ornaments. He seldom used one cut twice.

[timgrei]

Can one of you tell me, if these larger ones are wood cuts or lead stereotypes?

[georgd]

I’d happily accept pull requests :) However, I’m still not sure about the target. Aldus leafs and variants thereof are definitely in the text fonts‘ scope. There are three unicode code points (floral heart) with various rotation variants:

• U+2619 ☙ REVERSED ROTATED FLORAL HEART BULLET (Miscellaneous Symbols)
• U+2766 ❦ FLORAL HEART (Dingbats)
• U+2767 ❧ ROTATED FLORAL HEART BULLET (Dingbats)

They are left pointing, downwards pointing and right pointing but no upwards pointing exists. The various leaf and achorn designs would be added as variants of these and should be made available via cv90 which already contains an alternative design.

[georgd]

Can one of you tell me, if these larger ones are wood cuts or lead stereotypes?

I couldn’t tell. But regarding the size, I’d rather tend to expect a woodcut.

[timgrei]

I couldn’t tell. But regarding the size, I’d rather tend to expect a woodcut.

That's what I thought, considering their quantity.

They are left pointing, downwards pointing and right pointing but no upwards pointing exists. The various leaf and achorn designs would be added as variants of these and should be made available via cv90 which already contains an alternative design.

Wouldn't it be easier for developer and user to have a separate font for ornaments?

[timgrei]

I was asking because I thought that's where we could draw the line. Lead ornaments as part of the regular font and wood cuts in another.

[georgd]

I’d happily accept pull requests :) However, I’m still not sure about the target. Aldus leafs and variants thereof are definitely in the text fonts‘ scope. There are three unicode code points (floral heart) with various rotation variants:

• U+2619 ☙ REVERSED ROTATED FLORAL HEART BULLET (Miscellaneous Symbols)
• U+2766 ❦ FLORAL HEART (Dingbats)
• U+2767 ❧ ROTATED FLORAL HEART BULLET (Dingbats)

They are left pointing, downwards pointing and right pointing but no upwards pointing exists. The various leaf and achorn designs would be added as variants of these and should be made available via cv90 which already contains an alternative design.

It’s similar for the index symbols. There are at least code points for the four principal directions (U+261C, U+261D, U+261E, U+261F).

The border designs, however, I don’t know where to put. I’ve always been considering a separate font for these. What do you think?

[georgd]

I was asking because I thought that's where we could draw the line. Lead ornaments as part of the regular font and wood cuts in another.

Our last three comments were written simultaneously. We seem to think in the same direction, just setting the conditions on different sides of the history :). As I can not definitely tell which is a woodcut and which not, I’d rather take the unicode encoding as the measure for digitisation. If there’s a logical point in the encoding, it can be put there. If not, it should go in a separate font.

[timgrei]

That makes sense. So everything that is a Unicode symbol goes in the text font, everything else in EB Garamond Zierrat (I love that word). (Maybe the former could just be in both?)

We could categorize the ornaments (tailpiece, frames, &c.) and assign to lowercase, uppercase and so on.

[timgrei]

I was asking because I thought that's where we could draw the line. Lead ornaments as part of the regular font and wood cuts in another.

Our last three comments were written simultaneously. We seem to think in the same direction, just setting the conditions on different sides of the history :). As I can not definitely tell which is a woodcut and which not, I’d rather take the unicode encoding as the measure for digitisation. If there’s a logical point in the encoding, it can be put there. If not, it should go in a separate font.

Last five* :D

[timgrei]

Would be cool to have an usepackage with a \randomHeadpiece{3cm} command.

[georgd]

That makes sense. So everything that is a Unicode symbol goes in the text font, everything else in EB Garamond Zierrat (I love that word). (Maybe the former could just be in both?)

We could categorize the ornaments (tailpiece, frames, &c.) and assign to lowercase, uppercase and so on.

EB Garamond Zierrat is nice, indeed :) It would be a classical ornamental font. The question would be if we‘d adhere to any encoding or template (another very popular font which could serve as such) or just do our own thing.

[timgrei]

Maybe my brain is weird, but when I think about that word I go: Zierrat –> Unrat –> Unkraut –> Blumen –> Ornamente. So it kind of has a recursive meaning to me.

We could look at those templates available and see if we agree with them. In most free ornament fonts it's all very messy.

[georgd]

Yes, it’s all very messy. I think, the only ones we should care abput would be default fonts in Windows/Mac/Linux. All the others we can safely disregard.

EDIT I think, we can dispose of this thought altogether. I don’t see any common template between the systems.

[timgrei]

What about the big foundries, Adobe, Monotype, ...

[georgd]

Do they follow a schema? I actually don’t have access to a relevant font by them.

[timgrei]

I don't either, I was hoping you do.

Maybe, @Alexander-Wilms and I should start the vectorizing in a separate branch or repo while we sort this out. The more ornaments we see, the more we get a feeling for how to sort them.

[timgrei]

EB Garamond Zierrat is nice, indeed :)

Maybe Zierat would be more appropriate, which seems to have been the only form prior to the reform and has a nicer Wortbild. The Grimmsches Wörterbuch even has the beautiful word verzieraten.

[georgd]

No, I think you can do it in the main branch. The real major retailors of fonts are the major operation system providers (someone might hate me for this). If there‘s no pattern to be found for an encoding of a not really special purpose font then we can assume that our prospects won't be covered. We’ll have to come up with our own encoding, then. For the users, we’ll have to document it, of course.

I’d suggest, however, to use the PUA for the ornaments and populate the ASCII block with the EBG ASCII glyphs as Icon fonts like Fontawesome do.

[timgrei]

No, I think you can do it in the main branch. The real major retailors of fonts are the major operation system providers (someone might hate me for this). If there‘s no pattern to be found for an encoding of a not really special purpose font then we can assume that our prospects won't be covered. We’ll have to come up with our own encoding, then. For the users, we’ll have to document it, of course.

All right.

I’d suggest, however, to use the PUA for the ornaments and populate the ASCII block with the EBG ASCII glyphs as Icon fonts like Fontawesome do.

Sorry, I'm not quite following. So the ASCII block has the same glyphs as the text font or put matching icons there?

[georgd]

EB Garamond Zierrat is nice, indeed :)

Maybe Zierat would be more appropriate, which seems to have been the only form prior to the reform and has a nicer Wortbild. The Grimmsches Wörterbuch even has the beautiful word verzieraten.

Linguistically it doesn‘t matter. The German ear doesn‘t hear a difference between a single or duplicate r in a German word in that place 😂

[timgrei]

I have German ears (also would be weird if an orthography reform would change pronunciation) :D But the word feels more like heraus, &c. (which we still write with one) than Schiff(f)ahrt. And I think Zierrat looks weird.

[georgd]

I’d suggest, however, to use the PUA for the ornaments and populate the ASCII block with the EBG ASCII glyphs as Icon fonts like Fontawesome do.

Sorry, I'm not quite following. So the ASCII block has the same glyphs as the text font or put matching icons there?

Yes, the ASCII block would be present and show the same glyphs as EBG12. The actual symbols would be encoded in the PUA. Fontaweome starts them after F002.

[timgrei]

I’d suggest, however, to use the PUA for the ornaments and populate the ASCII block with the EBG ASCII glyphs as Icon fonts like Fontawesome do.

Sorry, I'm not quite following. So the ASCII block has the same glyphs as the text font or put matching icons there?

Yes, the ASCII block would be present and show the same glyphs as EBG12. The actual symbols would be encoded in the PUA. Fontaweome starts them after F002.

Sounds good.

I always thought, it would be cool it those icon fonts would work with ligatures. So when you type github it becomes the github logo.

[georgd]

I have German ears (also would be weird if an orthography reform would change pronunciation) :D But the word feels more like heraus, &c. (which we still write with one) than Schiff(f)ahrt. And I think Zierrat looks weird.

German phonology doesn‘t have a different r. So whatever is codified by orthographic rules will just be an [R]. In the case of Zierrat it just reflects a supposed composition of zier + rat because the new orthography wants to be more logical in certain ethymological contexts. (I’m fine with this as I was fine with the former because either is a modern interpretation...)

[georgd]

I always thought, it would be cool it those icon fonts would work with ligatures. So when you type github it becomes the github logo.

This can be done and is done by various fonts. but it depends on the user always being aware of what they’re being doing.

[timgrei]

I have German ears (also would be weird if an orthography reform would change pronunciation) :D But the word feels more like heraus, &c. (which we still write with one) than Schiff(f)ahrt. And I think Zierrat looks weird.

German phonology doesn‘t have a different r. So whatever is codified by orthographic rules will just be an [R]. In the case of Zierrat it just reflects a supposed composition of zier + rat because the new orthography wants to be more logical in certain ethymological contexts. (I’m fine with this as I was fine with the former because either is a modern interpretation...)

I know (I never claimed the two forms would sound differently). I'm just saying a) it looks better and b) this is an old typeface and Zierat is an old word used by typesetters in the olden times and unheard of by modern German speakers without this special interest. So I think Zierat would be more appropriate. Sorry, for making us digress so much :D

Also, as a northern German I can't even make an [R] 🤣

[timgrei]

😕

Egal :D

[georgd]

I wrote [R] to nor predetermine any of the possible realisations of /r/ that you’ll find between the Danish border and wherever south you find German speakers :D

[timgrei]

wherever south you find German speakers

That would be Neuschwabenland.

[timgrei]

The books of de Turnes sometimes show this symbol:

Do you know what that is?

[Alexander-Wilms]

Maybe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_prescription ? Or Rex?

Cf. Domesday Book, Bedefordscire:

[timgrei]

Yes, it's from a book about cancer treatment, so the context makes sense. I have never seen this before, as this isn't on German prescriptions, so I didn't know how to google it and thought it was a symbol from that time.

[georgd]

Looks like the prescription symbol. EBG has it :)

[timgrei]

If we only use the PUA, you can only use them by copy-paste or some sort of library for TeX, HTML, etc., right? Wouldn't it then be irrelevant, how we sort them?

[georgd]

No, you can directly address them by using the code points like \char"F002 (if this is still the correct syntax in LaTeX) or &#xF002. The sorting is indeed irrelevant :)

[timgrei]

Do you want us to document the source for each ornament? Because that would be a lot of work, that's maybe not necessary.

[georgd]

I don’t think it‘s necessary to document each ornament <> source relation but a list of all the sources might be interesting :)

[Alexander-Wilms]

Just for info if someone else is looking for these ornaments, there's also a CTAN package of IM Fell Flower under the same proprietary license: https://ctan.org/pkg/imfellflowers

In the .zip there's a file which states SIL OFL 1.1, but in the IMFeFlow1.otf and IMFeFlow2.otf fonts the following license text is embedded:

These fonts are nearly free fonts. You can use them freely but:
a) If you want to use them in publications on any kind of media you have to put in the following quote as a note: «The Fell Types are digitally reproduced by Igino Marini. www.iginomarini.com» and let the designer know where you used it.
b) You can’t modify the fonts and their content (including outlines, kerning and other data as well).
c) You can distribute them freely with license aside but not sell it in any way.
Any other different use has to be authorized by the designer

[timgrei]

I'm starting with De peste commentarius by de Tournes.

[timgrei]

Euclid's Geometry by Oliver Byrne uses the ornaments from the specimen.

[Alexander-Wilms]

How do you create them? With Inkscape? Do you have any tips?

[timgrei]

Yes, Inkscape. First I put the image in an AI upscaler (I use upscaly), then I use Inkscape's tool to trace bitmaps and manually clean it up.

[timgrei]

Obviously, some images have to be unwarped before.

[timgrei]

I thought, this was easier than the initials, but this took me two hours.

[Alexander-Wilms]

I've started with "Granjon's six-piece combinable flower on Great Primer A [FLC6] Units e-f" :

Cf. the page preview here, which shows the ornament's name.

[timgrei]

Okay, that's a book, we should get.

[Alexander-Wilms]

One thing to consider: Should we have one glyph per stamp and in addition to that combined ornaments?

Having combined ornaments makes it easier to typeset in a lot of cases, but the separate stamps are still needed sometimes.

First try still using IM Fell: «The Fell Types are digitally reproduced by Igino Marini. www.iginomarini.com»

%!TEX program = lualatex
% adapted from https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/88093/38905
\PassOptionsToPackage{usenames,x11names,dvipsnames,svgnames}{xcolor}
\documentclass[]{scrartcl}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{calc,positioning}
\usepackage{geometry}
\geometry{a4paper,tmargin=1in,bmargin=1in,
    lmargin=1in,rmargin=1in,heightrounded}
%
\usepackage{fontspec}
\newfontfamily\granjonornaments{IMFeFlow1}
\newcommand\deco[3][black]{%
    \par\vspace{1ex}
    %\begin{center}
    \textcolor{#1}{%
        \fontsize{#2}{#2}\granjonornaments #3
    }
    %\end{center}
    \vspace*{1ex}\par
}
%
\newcommand{ \pattern}{EOPQ}
\begin{document}
    \begin{tikzpicture}[remember picture,overlay]
        \node[rotate=90,align=center] at ($(current page.west)+(.8cm,0.14cm)$){{\deco{15.1pt}{ \pattern\pattern\pattern\pattern\pattern\pattern\pattern\pattern\pattern\pattern\pattern\pattern\pattern\pattern\pattern\pattern\pattern\pattern\pattern\pattern\pattern\pattern}}};
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        %\draw [rounded corners=8pt,line width=4pt,draw=DarkRed]($(current page.south west)+(.4cm,.5cm)$) rectangle ($(current page.north east)+(-.4cm,-.39cm)$);
    \end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

Also, in a combined ornament one could have a bit of variation between each mirrored stamp.