FB principles of specimen design, please add.

[dberlow]

Font Bureau Principles and Practices in Specimen composition, (pre-variable font tech).

1. The composition’s intent is to show the font family in its best light. A. Use Simple words and phrases that don’t add distracting emotions or other reactions. “LOOK OUT DUMMY” not as good as “FOCUSED INTENTLY” B. Try to compose using easily justifiable letters at the beginning and end of words L,R,X and O are good to start a line, T and Y are not. H, I and J are good to end a line, L, Y and f are not. C. Words should contain, as much as possible examples of round (O,c), square (H,h) and diagonal (X,v) glyphs in each word, or in the phrase at least. “HIDDEN VOLE”, better than “WAVY NAVY”, “Roosevelt Music” better than “Coolidge Coop”

2. The stylistic selection should cover the breath of the family, and show realistic pairings valuable to users. A. adjacent display type sizes should step at least 25% from one to another. B. Weights should either step for contrast, a minimum step of 200 wght, or step with visual compatibility to the previous sample. C. Width selection should step like weights, with a minimum of 15% wght change from style to style. D. Companion italic styles may repeat styles and size below their Roman partner.

3. Case use should include all-caps and mixed use. A. Above 18 pt, mixed case should avoid descenders. “Classic fonts” is better use of space than “Egyptian Calypso”. B. Uppercase settings should be linespaced from the baseline and avoid use of descending uppercase, (Q and J). C. Below 18 pt only mixed case should be shown.

4.Practice begins with a set of fixed variables and proceeds from there to fill in the rest according to recommendations above.

1. The font family is selected
2. A column width is chosen.
3. An initial size and style is selected.
4. A word or phrase is made up that fits. A. In the column B. At the give size C. Without manual intervention with tracking.
5. A second style and size are selected and the process repeats until the stack is full.
6. Line spacing should be based on clearance between styles having the y-stems, like the three cross strokes of “E” as a starting value. After variables:
7. While using variable font axes can leave behind weight and width values of whatever works, this may not be as practical for user specimens. So, sticking to Round numbers, 100, 200, 350, 500 for weights, and 90, 80, 75, percent of width is probably more helpful.
8. Label everything
9. Responsive versions of these kind of stacked specimens would need dynamic labels and lots of other details to be worked out before a new set of principles comes around.

[dberlow]

This from a specimen book selected at random, turned to a random page.

Note use of mixed case w/out descenders until 18-24 pt...