Fix Cyrillic characters.

[Daymarius]

Hi! Need to change some glyphs of the Cyrillic For comparison, I will use the Futura font

Jost "Д" Futura "Д" Jost"Л" Futura "Л" Jost "Ч" Futura "Ч" Jost "б" Futura "б" Jost "д" Futura "д" Jost "л" Futura "л" Jost "ф" Futura "ф" Jost "ч" Futura "ч"

[uncinarynin]

Another question (that goes to native speakers): Should italic use the specific italic shapes of some Cyrillic letters? Example from Adobe Illustrator: (It seems like the kerning in Jost* Italic is also different, making the whole line shorter.)

[EwonRael]

Many of the letters of Jost are very similar to those of Futura. Jost takes heavy inspiration from Futura, but one of the things that interesting is that version 1 of Jost* looked less like Futura then the current version.

This is because my design process seems to go through two phases. First I design the letters roughly. Then I refine the letters. I do that by writing words and squinting at them and asking myself: "does that 'a' really look like an 'a' to me?"

It's a process that's based a lot in intuition and also the familiarity that comes with growing up using these letters. It's made my alphabet look more like Futura, but I think that's because there's all of these little problems that designing letters presents, and over time I've decided on the same kinds of solutions that Futura employs.

Maybe making the same design decisions as Futura because I independently arrived at the same conclusion, and copying it outright is a meaningless distinction, but it's important to me.

I'm uncomfortable just copying the Futura cyrillic alphabet. Eventually I might arrive at the conclusion that it's the best way of doing things but I want to arrive there organically.

I'm never really going to be done. I'm still changing letters like "a". It will also be slow because I don't have nearly the same level of familiarity with cyrillics than I do the Latin alphabet.

I'll keep working on it though.

[Daymarius]

Many of the letters of Jost are very similar to those of Futura. Jost takes heavy inspiration from Futura, but one of the things that interesting is that version 1 of Jost* looked less like Futura then the current version.

This is because my design process seems to go through two phases. First I design the letters roughly. Then I refine the letters. I do that by writing words and squinting at them and asking myself: "does that 'a' really look like an 'a' to me?"

It's a process that's based a lot in intuition and also the familiarity that comes with growing up using these letters. It's made my alphabet look more like Futura, but I think that's because there's all of these little problems that designing letters presents, and over time I've decided on the same kinds of solutions that Futura employs.

Maybe making the same design decisions as Futura because I independently arrived at the same conclusion, and copying it outright is a meaningless distinction, but it's important to me.

I'm uncomfortable just copying the Futura cyrillic alphabet. Eventually I might arrive at the conclusion that it's the best way of doing things but I want to arrive there organically.

I'm never really going to be done. I'm still changing letters like "a". It will also be slow because I don't have nearly the same level of familiarity with cyrillics than I do the Latin alphabet.

I'll keep working on it though.

I'm not talking about full copying Futura cyrillic character, i am a Cyrillic speaker, all the glyphs I have shown are incorrect. "Д" and "Л" should not be in different styles, "Д" follows from "Л". "Л" and "л" make a little narrower and make a hook-like end. "Ч" and "ч" not quite right "б" it goes much beyond Cap height

[Daymarius]

@EwonRael I'm not talking about incomplete similarity with Futura, i show exactly the mistakes in the Cyrillic, I'm trying to help make the Cyrillic correct.

[uncinarynin]

shouldn't the ascenders and descenders of б and ф follow the other lowercase letters like bdhklpq?

[Daymarius]

shouldn't the ascenders and descenders of б and ф follow the other lowercase letters like bdhklpq?

"б" should be exactly on x-height or slightly higher, Futura is a good example and "ф" should be on x-height and at the end level of the "y"

I really like Jost, i just want to help make it better, this is not a copy of Futura, this is a very good alternative and this if FREE! Thank you so much for your work!

[EwonRael]

thanks for the feedback. That collaborative process is part of what makes it great.

The Cyrillic is very much in its first incarnation, so to speak. The Latin alphabet was laughably bad in the first version of Jost*.

I've attached a screenshot of the first version of the Jost* Latin alphabet for your viewing pleasure.

Okay maybe it's not laughable, but it's gotten better over the years, and I suppose the Cyrillics will too.

[Daymarius]

@EwonRael type.today released a review of the сyrillic charecters in the Jost font https://type.today/en/journal/geo#Jost. I hope this will help you to improve the cyrillic in your font.

[EwonRael]

Bummer of a review, but fair. This deserves some serious attention because in some respects poorly implemented langue support can be worse then none at all.

Thanks for all the feedback. I promise it's on my radar and I want to do it justice if I can. It's going to take a considerable amount of time and it might be a while before I find that time.