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indestructible-type / Drafting

An origonal Monospaced font
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About 1 / l and 0 / O #1

Open NightFurySL2001 opened 3 years ago

NightFurySL2001 commented 3 years ago

Thank you for your great font! I only have two questions regarding the design, specifically on the 1/l pair and 0/O pair. These two pairs looks too similar, is it possible to add something to differentiate them or as stylistic set? Below shows Drafting* Mono and IBM Plex Mono in comparison (1liLI0O).

image

EwonRael commented 3 years ago

Yes!

These letters were made to look similar because on a typewriter they are often the same character, but understandably this design decision limits Drafting* Mono's usability.

I think it would be a lovely feature to make it more coding friendly by drawing distinct 0s and 1s.

This is not something you have to answer, but personally do you think it would be better to have the 0s and 1s as a stylistic alternative, or build a separate version of the font altogether (maybe called Drafting* Code or something) and have that use the alternatives out of the box?

Just thinking this over let me know your thoughts.

In any case this is on my radar for sure.

NightFurySL2001 commented 3 years ago

Personally for me, I would suggest separate version as most designers probably (?) would not even know about this feature and more apps can not access the alternate version by itself. However, this might be against the original thought for this font for sure, and the history is a reasonable thing to keep in this font too, so I can't suggest which way to go for definite. (But however again, a slashed zero OpenType zero is strongly suggested to be included.)

pdl commented 3 years ago

For coding, you're going to want the base glyphs to be the differentiated versions - support for alternates is poor among terminals and editing environments. Personally, I think having differentiated glyphs as default would really suit the core design as expressed in

The resulting alphabet is weird, wildly inconsistent, and contains design decisions that if you were to explain out-loud to me I would reject as being overly stylistic and distracting.

1 is the only numeral with no curves and looks awkward, so I'd love to have a 1 with a curve like Cousine's, and an el with a hook like Fira Mono. Slashed 'overstruck' zero would fit thematically, though the confusion with Ø is unfortunate. An incomplete slash, stopping at the edge of the character, like the vertical stroke on Drafting*'s $ or like ¤ would address that, though I don't think I have seen that used on typewriters or any fonts for that matter.

EwonRael commented 2 years ago

What do you guys think of the update?

I made 1 and l and O and 0 different looking by default and included the older versions as a stylistic set.

Screenshot from 2022-02-22 23-55-59@2x

pdl commented 2 years ago

Just tried this out and it is very helpful and clear, thanks!

JimEBlevins commented 1 year ago

What do you guys think of the update?

I made 1 and l and O and 0 different looking by default and included the older versions as a stylistic set.

Thanks!

A "slashed zero" would have irritated some Norwegian programmers (and possibly look like the emptyset, which would have irritated mathematicians).