Reproducible build process

[skosch]

I am not an expert on font production. I don't know how fonts (should) behave across different browsers, applications and OS, let alone what users' requirements are regarding OpenType features, hinting, subsetting, webfonts, etc.

I would like to figure out a process (build script?) to take care of the above, in order to help me and others take care of the 30+ issues that have accumulated on this repo.

• Does it make sense to convert sources to UFO?
• In 2017, what is the best way to maintain OT features?
• What binaries do users need? OTFs? TTFs? Subsetted/web-optimized? (or should we leave the latter to users?)
• Run FontBakery on all commits? Worth the trouble, yes/no?
• Anything else?

@katef, you have written a Makefile, and I would love to get your input. @adrientetar and @khaledhosny, you guys have been so helpful in the past – if you know of any resources on the current best practices, I would be grateful if you could point me to them.

Thank you!

[adrientetar]

Hey. These days I"d just use fontmake with UFO sources.

[skosch]

Sweet! Glad I asked, I'd never even heard of that. That looks great

[skosch]

I think we have to fix #42 first, there's no way around it. I've opened fontforge/fontforge#3048.

[adrientetar]

I think we have to fix #42 first, there's no way around it.

You can try exporting to UFO from FontForge and then putting the fea files in the UFO (features.fea). I see they were cleaned up manually.

[skosch]

So I've tried that, but at the end of the day I get the same errors in FontForge. There are a few glyph names that don't reference nonexisting glyphs in the font. FF doesn't tell me which ones they are, just the line numbers, and there's a ton of them. Some of it has to do with glyph naming (that I can take care of), but others I believe were introduced by Igino Marini's iKern program and have never existed at all.

I'd like to merge the .fea and ignore all nonexistent glyphs. Any suggestions?

[adrientetar]

Well, I guess you could write a script to parse the FEA file and take the glyph names inside groups @​​group = [\]; they are space-separated then for each name check if it's in the font and remove it in the file is that's not the case.
That's a bit gross but it should do the job, otherwise it might be possible to use fonttools.feaLib to parse the fea then access the glyph names in the AST.

font = TTFont()
glyphMap = font.getReverseGlyphMap()
parser = feaLib.parser.Parser(feapath, glyphMap=glyphMap)
ast = parser.parse()

[katef]

I'd like to merge the .fea and ignore all nonexistent glyphs.

Here's what I think happened: Igino Marini must've written a program which groups glyphs into categories, and defined kerning rules for those categories (and then I guess tweaks stuff by hand where necessary). And then his code which outputs those categories presumably lists every glyph which possibly belongs in them - even ones this particular font doesn't have. I imagine those are categories he's built up over time, across many fonts.

So I'm guessing he essentially did that, and ignored all the non-existent glyphs. If that's right, then us ignoring them would be harmless, since they were never present in this font.

Maybe we could produce some test PDFs which show kerning pairs, just to eyeball for obvious mistakes?

[skosch]

I have arrived at precisely the same conclusion. I just spent all afternoon manually removing any and all references to the phantom glyphs and, after some hours of pythoning and regexing (and cursing) have managed to convert all sfd+fea files into .ufo folders. @adrientetar your comment was super helpful – I couldn't have done it without feaLib for sure, so thank you.

I am now trying to use fontmake to compile to OTF/TTF, but there seem to be issues with the outlines still (I'm getting errors like ufoLib.glifLib.GlifLibError: line can not have an offcurve.). Hopefully once those are taken care of I can push everything and we can start to work on other (real) issues.

[skosch]

... alright, I've uploaded stuff to the ufo branch. According to FontBakery, a whole bunch of metrics numbers are off :roll_eyes: but for now I have to get some sleep. Feel free to test and tweak things!

[davelab6]

@fonthausen reviewed the ufo branch and found there is no kerning there, but the OTFs have it. Was the kerning done with iKern? I forget. Also, the UFOs have no anchors, which OTFs have.

So I propose that @m4rc1e convert the project to a Crimson.glyphs source base (which builds with fontmake) - however, I'm not sure if @skosch is determined to use FontForge?

[Fonthausen]

No file has anchors, I might have been unclear.

[m4rc1e]

@davelab6 @Fonthausen, I fancy dedicating my morning to this mission. I'll get the build chain and other stuff transferred into the .ufos.

[m4rc1e]

Kerning is coming back

@Fonthausen Anchors didn't exist in the .sfd files either. We'l ignore them for the time being

[m4rc1e]

I've almost completed the mastering. However, there's too many design inconsistencies for us to releaase this at the moment. I suggest a designer forks my fork and does the fixes to my gf mastering branch.

More than happy to have a hangout on how to do this.

[Fonthausen]

It is difficult to see on your gif, due to the lowres quality. With design inconsistencies, you mean accent positioning etc. or real form/outline problems.

I was asked by Dave to go through the known issues and solve them. My first step would be to add proper anchors and rebuild all combined characters.

[m4rc1e]

@Fonthausen it was more just a demo to show that there are multiple issues.

Its really up to you and @davelab6 how far you take this. Bare in mind this font is not Multiple Master based. This means you'll need to do the anchors across six fonts individually. I'd advise you just shift the components by hand (I know this is bad) and fix the issues which GF Regression reports.

[davelab6]

Perfect, Jacques has a good starting point point and you might need to make a hangout or just marc tell Jacques exactly what to do to get the files into his local machine 😁

On Jul 13, 2017 7:30 AM, "Marc Foley" notifications@github.com wrote:

@Fonthausen https://github.com/fonthausen it was more just a demo to show that there are multiple issues

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[skosch]

@davelab6 to answer your questions:

• I'm not married to Fontforge at all, UFO all the way
• The kerning data I think is in the features.fea file. It was done with iKern but we had some trouble with it (see earlier discussion in this thread).

Also I vaguely recall the kerning data in the OTF having been corrupted, so if you took the kerning from there you may want to look at a page of specimen text to spot any problems (don't take my word for it, this is all too long ago; I hope I'm wrong).

I apologize for the sorry state the files are in. I'm all the more grateful for your contributions!

[davelab6]

Great!

On Jul 13, 2017 8:40 AM, "Sebastian Kosch" notifications@github.com wrote:

@davelab6 https://github.com/davelab6 to answer your questions:

• I'm not married to Fontforge at all, UFO all the way
• The kerning data I think is in the features.fea file. It was done with iKern but we had some trouble with it (see earlier discussion in this thread).

Also I vaguely recall the kerning data in the OTF having been corrupted, so if you took the kerning from there you may want to look at a page of specimen text to spot any problems (don't take my word for it, this is all too long ago; I hope I'm wrong).

I apologize for the sorry state the files are in. I'm all the more grateful for your contributions!

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[skosch]

And yeah it's not MM unfortunately. However most of the semibold is an interpolation, so the glyphs are for the most part homomorphic. If your time and budget allows for it, consolidating it all into MM would be just amazing. I'm aware that's a lot of work though.

[m4rc1e]

@skosch don't worry about it. The project is great, let's make it better!

@davelab6 this project will take @Fonthausen some time to get right, it isn't a simple push new release as we expected :-)

@Fonthausen let me know when you're free so we can do some git magic :-)

[davelab6]

Its fine with me if it takes a while :)

On 13 July 2017 at 08:57, Marc Foley notifications@github.com wrote:

@skosch https://github.com/skosch don't worry about it. The project is great, let's make it better!

@davelab6 https://github.com/davelab6 this project will take @Fonthausen https://github.com/fonthausen some time to get right, it isn't a simple push new release as we expected :-)

@Fonthausen https://github.com/fonthausen let me know when you're free so we can do some git magic :-)

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-- Cheers Dave

[madig]

Just chiming in to say that some best practices according to SIL are collected here: https://silnrsi.github.io/FDBP/en-US/index.html

Something making a UFO-based workflow harder is that doing multiple masters with UFO in Glyphs.app is somewhat annoying... Maybe some day I'll write a file type plugin that uses designspace files...

[skosch]

@Fonthausen I can't help but ask – when do you hope to be able to take this on? Now that Montserrat is done, and I love how that turned out! ... is Crimson up next? :)

[Fonthausen]

@skosch I would love to take Crimson as the next project. But at the moment I am working on other none GF font projects. Maybe you can ask @davelab6 if he knows how the future planning will be for Crimson.

Montserrat ended in being a large project and leaving me less time for other ones.

[skosch]

I see, no worries Jacques. @davelab6 what are your thoughts?

[davelab6]

I'm not sure what we'll do next year... lets keep in touch :)

[skosch]

Ah, that's a bummer. I'll be looking forward to 2018 then!

[EbenSorkin]

On one hand this seems like a good candidate project to be turned into a Multiple Master in the sense that the style of type will be seen as basic/core to a font Library. The argument against might be the existence of Spectral. But Crimson is a 16th C type and Spectral is really much more 19th C

[skosch]

@davelab6 any plans for 2018 yet? :)

[davelab6]

Eben, thanks for your thoughtful assessment, I agree.

No 2018 plans yet, but will keep you updated when I have news.

On Jan 25, 2018 2:56 PM, "Sebastian Kosch" notifications@github.com wrote:

@davelab6 https://github.com/davelab6 any plans for 2018 yet? :)

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[Fonthausen]

Hi @skosch !

@davelab6 asked me to have a look at Crimson and I have some questions. I read this thread and your remarks on https://github.com/skosch/Crimson/tree/ufo

Could you please add OTFs to your git ? The UFO are strange and don't work well in Glyphs.

I was asked to have an elaborate look at Crimson, from a technical and design point of view.

Technically I don't think I will have many big questions. I will work in Glyphs. We can always export UFO's if needed along or at the end of the process.

Would you be open for design suggestions, if I find something along the way ?

You have been doing a lot changes the last 4-5 years and it now looks quite different to Crimson Text on GF. Do you think Crimson should be an update to Crimson Text, or a different typeface ?

Is there anything you would like to change style-wise ? Or is what I found on your git what you were aiming at ?

Could you describe what your intentions are/were with Crimson ? For example, what woud be the typographic use ?

Why is the Greek looking more "hand drawn" than the Latin and Cyrillic ? Did you base the design on specific sources ?

In Crimson Text (GF) you added a complete superior and inferior alphabet. In Crimson you didn't. Do you want it added ?

In your git you are talking about adding "typographic niceties". What would you want ?

I read you used Crimson in Amiri. Is the Latin the same as Crimson, or were there any changes that should be incorporated in Crimson ?

Could you please have a look at my questions. Your answers will give me a fair idea on how much work we are looking at.

Best regards, Jacques (Le Bailly)

[skosch]

@Fonthausen @davelab6 thank you both! This is exciting news.

You have been doing a lot changes the last 4-5 years and it now looks quite different to Crimson Text on GF. Do you think Crimson should be an update to Crimson Text, or a different typeface ?

The original design was named Crimson Text because I had hoped for there to be a companion Crimson Display. That never came to pass, and in addition many users and myself got lazy and dropped the "Text" in conversation. Around the same time, I grew dissatisfied with the somewhat clumsy look of the first version, and decided to redraw the outlines entirely. The poor naming discipline and timing led people to believe that "Crimson Text" (as offered by Google) and "Crimson" (this repo) referred to v1/v2, respectively.

Now, some users have expressed that they prefer the look of v1 – I can't say I understand that sentiment, but I think the sanest way forward is to leave the v1 around for those people and to offer a cleaned-up edition of v2 in parallel (that's up to Dave of course).

I read you used Crimson in Amiri. Is the Latin the same as Crimson, or were there any changes that should be incorporated in Crimson ?

The reason I mention Amiri is that it's currently the one way for users to get v2 via Google Fonts. @khaledhosny helped make substantial technical improvements to the font, many of which have since been destroyed by well-meaning PRs I accepted from others (in this repo). It may actually be a good idea for you to use Amiri's latin as a starting point. It may be a little bit behind this repo but the files are in much better shape – unlike myself, Khaled knows what he's doing.

Could you describe what your intentions are/were with Crimson ? For example, what woud be the typographic use ?

Back then, the only libre old-style fonts were Junicode, Cardo, URW Garamond et al., and I wanted to provide a complete family based on the same historical role models, but minus the daintiness (that's why v2 became so close to Minion). Intended use is long-form text; people have used it for books, magazines, blogs, etc.

Is there anything you would like to change style-wise ? Or is what I found on your git what you were aiming at ? Would you be open for design suggestions, if I find something along the way ?

I never sat down with a design concept; Crimson kinda just grew into the Frankenstein that it is today. I think that simpler, sturdier serifs would help. I don't like the feet of k, K and R, and I think the font in general and the italics in particular lack character. I would welcome any suggestions with open arms.

Why is the Greek looking more "hand drawn" than the Latin and Cyrillic ? Did you base the design on specific sources ?

Yeah, the Greek. It was a pet project of mine; I don't much care for the latinization the Greek alphabet went through and absolutely love what Robert Slimbach did with the Greek in his Garamond – that's what inspired it. Do people like it or use it? No idea, I've never received feedback. I do like the look of it in long-form text; I don't like the look of it in math formulas. Maybe it should be turned into a separate font and Crimson given a Latin-style Greek. What do you think?

In Crimson Text (GF) you added a complete superior and inferior alphabet. In Crimson you didn't. Do you want it added ? In your git you are talking about adding "typographic niceties". What would you want ?

I doubt it's all that useful. Small caps are nice though, and subscript/superscript/fraction/proportional/old-style figures are too. Any thoughts on the matter?

I would have liked to include more math characters, to make Crimson suitable for use with LaTeX. I think this problem has since been solved, more or less, by packages like Cochineal. I think that aiming for coverage similar to what Work Sans offers is probably enough.

All in all, I think the best way forward is to first decide on a character set and whether or not you want to turn this into a MM project. Then I would suggest you start with the Amiri latin, and some of the issues in this repo can act as a to-do list as well. Does that sound reasonable?

[xenocrat]

I never sat down with a design concept; Crimson kinda just grew into the Frankenstein that it is today.

@skosch I just want to say that I think you do yourself a massive disservice with this statement. I absolutely adore Crimson (v2) with all its quirks and peculiarities. I'm using it in a couple of places and I think it is a lovely font; crisp and commanding, but also with a whimsy that I find very rare in serif faces. I would be reluctant to exchange it for anything else.

I'm very pleased to see any progress toward stabilising/normalising the build process and squashing the gremlins, so that Crimson can really shine as it deserves to.

[davelab6]

I think the priority should be fixing the bugs in both crimson text and crimson so they work alone as separate designs that are both top quality :)

On Feb 17, 2018 2:56 PM, "Daniel Pimley" notifications@github.com wrote:

I never sat down with a design concept; Crimson kinda just grew into the Frankenstein that it is today.

@skosch https://github.com/skosch I just want to say that I think you do yourself a massive disservice with this statement. I absolutely adore Crimson (v2) with all its quirks and peculiarities. I'm using it in a couple of places and I think it is a lovely font; crisp and commanding, but also with a whimsy that I find very rare in serif faces. I would be reluctant to exchange it for anything else.

I'm very pleased to see any progress toward stabilising/normalising the build process and squashing the gremlins, so that Crimson can really shine as it deserves to.

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[Fonthausen]

I think the priority should be fixing the bugs in both crimson text and crimson so they work alone as separate designs that are both top quality :)

Sounds like a good plan :)

On Feb 17, 2018 2:56 PM, "Daniel Pimley" notifications@github.com wrote:

I never sat down with a design concept; Crimson kinda just grew into the Frankenstein that it is today.

@skosch https://github.com/skosch I just want to say that I think you do yourself a massive disservice with this statement. I absolutely adore Crimson (v2) with all its quirks and peculiarities. I'm using it in a couple of places and I think it is a lovely font; crisp and commanding, but also with a whimsy that I find very rare in serif faces. I would be reluctant to exchange it for anything else.

I'm very pleased to see any progress toward stabilising/normalising the build process and squashing the gremlins, so that Crimson can really shine as it deserves to.

[skosch]

@xenocrat Thank you for your kind words; I meant to say that with a wink, not with bitterness. I'm pleased as punch that the font is liked by so many, but I'm just a dabbler and I have no delusions about it (currently) being a professional-grade product, that's all.

@davelab6 Let's talk naming. I'm not emotionally invested in this decision but if you want to keep v1 around (which given precedent I understand) then it may be wise to offer v2 as something other than just Crimson. Opinions on suffixes, anyone? Crimson Neue?

@Fonthausen Any thoughts yet on the character set?

[xenocrat]

Crimson Neue gets the job done, but imho it doesn't really speak to the character of this typeface.

Crimson Prime? (inspired by Courier Prime) Crimson Next? (inspired by Avenir Next) Crimson Novus? (inspired by Nimbus Sans Novus)

I quite like the sound of Crimson Prime.

[skosch]

Crimson Prime. I like that too. Novus/-um/-a is awkward with non-latinate names.

[Fonthausen]

Or maybe another nice color name?

⁣Verzonden door TypeApp ​

Op 18 feb. 2018 16:34, om 16:34, Sebastian Kosch notifications@github.com schreef:

Crimson Prime. I like that too. Novus/-um/-a is awkward with non-latinate names.

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[skosch]

Carmine, Vermilion, Cinnabar, Cochineal are all taken. Minium isn't but I'd rather not feed accusations that the font is a Minion knockoff. :)

[katef]

i vote for Kateson :D

[davelab6]

Crimson Prime is great

On Feb 18, 2018 12:33 PM, "Sebastian Kosch" notifications@github.com wrote:

Carmine, Vermilion, Cinnabar, Cochineal are all taken. Minium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minium_(pigment) isn't but I'd rather not feed accusations that the font is a Minion knockoff. :)

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[Fonthausen]

Hi Dave (@davelab6) & Sebastian (@skosch),

I have had a good look at Crimson and Crimson Text. The idea is to develop both into full grown serious typefaces to either GF Plus or Pro encoding. Standalone, but still family members :)

Sebastian, Dave asked me to make a time table on the work on both families. Please read it and tell me if I missed something. Maybe you don’t agree with my intentions/solutions. This would help to make a good estimate of the work.

Dave, you should have a look at the highlighted issues/questions.

Crimsons Text

After having a good look at Crimson Text (CT) I noticed the following.

– CT consists of a Latin with Vietnamese, with matching smallcaps. The Regular and Italic have Cyrillic and Greek. – Including superior and inferior numerals. – Including superior and inferior upper/lowercase characters. – Including superior and inferior punctuation. – Including smallcaps punctuation. – Tabular and oldstyle figures. Proportional lining and smallcaps figures. – Ligatures.

Design/work:

– The outlines have to be checked, with care. Some are quite bumpy, but this also adds charm (and function) to the typeface. – The widths of the glyphs have to be reviewed. Some are too narrow, some too wide. This influences the overall rhythm. Visually most obvious in the uppercase. – Detailing, like the ear on the lc /g, or the right bottom serif on lc /r among many other issues :) – Spacing and kerning needs to be redone completely. – Typeface has no anchors. Anchors will be added and all composed characters re-generated.

– The Regular and Italic have Cyrillic and Greek. Bold and Bold Italic need this as well. Maybe Dave has numbers on how often the Greek/Cyrillic is actually being used ? – The Latin characters all have smallcaps counterparts. Do we maybe need that for Greek and Cyrillic as well ?

– The Bold weight should be overall wider for the use in small grades, as the typeface is intended for. – There is one other important design issue I noticed in the Bold weight. The weight distribution is a lot more vertical than in the Regular. In the Regular it is similar to Garamond, Sabon etc. The Bold is more like Baskerville. I think this should be changed. Unless this is part of the original design philosophy/concept ?

– Should we maybe add tabular old style figures as well ?

– CT has some mathematic characters, but not a complete set. Do we need all the superior/inferior characters/punctuation/math signs etc. ? Or do we leave them in for legacy issues ?

Crimson Prime

After having a good look at Crimson Prime (CP) I noticed the following.

Sebastian, for what size did you intend to use CP ? Mid size text or display size ? Spacing, kerning etc. would be different each case.

– CP consists of a Latin with Vietnamese. The Regular and Italic have Cyrillic and Greek. The Bold has an incomplete Greek layout and no Cyrillic. Bold Italic has no Greek and no Cyrillic. – Matching smallcaps. Excluded the Bold Italic. – Only the Regular has a complete set of superior and inferior numerals. – Including smallcaps punctuation. Excluded the Bold Italic. – Tabular, lining and oldstyle figures. Bold has no oldstyle figures. – Ligatures.

Design/work:

– The outlines have to be checked/corrected, with care. Some could be a lot smoother but this also adds charm to the typeface. – The widths of the glyphs have to be reviewed. Some are too narrow, some too wide. This influences the overall rhythm. Visually most obvious in the uppercase. – Detailing. – Spacing and kerning needs to be redone completely. – Typeface has no anchors. Anchors will be added and all composed characters re-generated.

– Overall width Bold looks like it should be in order. – Several characters in the Regular/Bold and Italic/Bold Italic should match better.

– Do we need to work/add the Greek and Cyrillic at this moment, or do we want to make it a future project ? This would mean we would take it out for this project.

– Should we maybe add tabular old style figures as well ?

– CP has some mathematic characters, but not a complete set. Do we need this for this project ?

We are going to develop both families as standalone, but still as family members. Does this mean both family should have the same encoding and containing the same (amount of) glyphs ? For CP this would mean extra work.

Best regards, Jacques

[skosch]

That's quite the list :)

I do agree with your design suggestions – outlines, glyph widths and details are the main issues for sure.

CT I'll leave up to you completely.

CP was intended for (and is mostly used for) body text. I think it currently looks best headline-sized. That's part of the reason that I think exploring simpler, sturdier serifs and terminals is a good idea.

I'm actually perfectly happy with Igino's iKern metrics for the CP – is there anything in particular that makes you want to redo the spacing/kerning completely?

I'm also curious if @davelab6 has usage stats on the more exotic characters, as I'm not sure what's worth maintaining and what isn't (quality > quantity). A solid Greek set, mostly for math use, would be on my personal wishlist but I've no idea whether that's a worthwhile time investment. Small caps are nice as well. But I'm not personally attached to all the inferiors/superiors etc.; unless Dave considers it necessary I don't think CP and CT need to have the exact same character set.

Lastly, are you going to interpolate a semibold again?

[Fonthausen]

Hi Sebastian,

CP was intended for (and is mostly used for) body text. I think it currently looks best headline-sized. That's part of the reason that I think exploring simpler, sturdier serifs and terminals is a good idea.

Do you want it to be altered, so it will function better in small sizes ? Asking to know if I understood it right. I thought it was like a display counterpart...

I'm actually perfectly happy with Igino's iKern metrics for the CP – is there anything in particular that makes you want to redo the spacing/kerning completely?

First, if we are going to balance the widths, details, weight distribution etc., the spacing will not work. Second, I like to space on color and rhythm, which is difficult to do by “software”. Third, I am oldskool :)

Kerning should be solving issues where spacing falls short.

I'm also curious if @davelab6 has usage stats on the more exotic characters, as I'm not sure what's worth maintaining and what isn't (quality > quantity). A solid Greek set, mostly for math use, would be on my personal wishlist but I've no idea whether that's a worthwhile time investment. Small caps are nice as well. But I'm not personally attached to all the inferiors/superiors etc.; unless Dave considers it necessary I don't think CP and CT need to have the exact same character set.

I hope @davelab6 can do his magic :) It would be interesting to see the results indeed.

Lastly, are you going to interpolate a semibold again?

Yes. CT and CP will be built in Glyphs with compatible masters. SemiBold will be interpolated.

[skosch]

Do you want it to be altered, so it will function better in small sizes ? Asking to know if I understood it right. I thought it was like a display counterpart...

It's a redesign of CT, which was intended for body text, so yes: giving it a subtle bit more bite at smaller sizes would be something I would aim for.

As much as I like the idea of creating a proper text/display-pair family ... I believe the reality is that users right now use both versions mostly for body text, and the characters/skeletons of the two are quite different. Crimson Prime Display would be better off as its own MM axis :)

[davelab6]

I am also not sure that the glyph set should be similar, as they are separate but related families.

That also means they should both target smaller "comfortable reading" sizes, and not display typography. That can come later, Amstelvar style :)

[Fonthausen]

Do you want it to be altered, so it will function better in small sizes ? Asking to know if I understood it right. I thought it was like a display counterpart...

It's a redesign of CT, which was intended for body text, so yes: giving it a subtle bit more bite at smaller sizes would be something I would aim for.

Fine by me :) Just wanted to know what I will have to work on.

[Fonthausen]

I am also not sure that the glyph set should be similar, as they are separate but related families.

Sounds good. Just an inquiry :) I will base the glyph set on the originals.

That also means they should both target smaller "comfortable reading" sizes, and not display typography. That can come later, Amstelvar style :)

I will work on CT and CP, they will keep me busy for while :)