Hi! I'm not sure if this suggestion is appropriate/welcome here, but I wanted to bring up what I find to be an issue with STIX. I'm not a font designer, so please bear with me.
Personally, I find many of the math operators in STIX to be too prominent, especially the \oplus symbol:
In my opinion, there are a few problems in the above screenshot here:
The \oplus symbol is too large. The lowest point of \oplus is significantly lower than the lowest point of its operands.
The \oplus symbol is too bold. In the last equation, there is too much contrast between \mathbb{R} and \oplus. I find this to be easily noticeable even when I am not paying attention to it.
The other math operators, such as + and \in, are also too bold. These operators are usually at least as thick as the surrounding characters (if not thicker as in the case of \mathbb{R} and \oplus). I would argue that the math operators should tend to be less thick than the surrounding characters. This seems to be the general philosophy behind other math font designs, so that operands tend toward the foreground and operators tend toward the background.
Here is a comparison of STIX with other popular math fonts, which suffer from these problems to a lesser degree.
TeX Gyre Termes:
TeX Gyre Pagella:
Libertinus:
I'm curious if this is something that others agree with. I don't have much knowledge in font design, so it's possible that this is an issue to my eyes alone. If someone with more experience would like to explain why STIX is designed this way, I would really appreciate that.
If others agree with this issue, I would propose the following changes, perhaps in a stylistic set:
Modify the \oplus symbol so that its diameter is closer to the diameter of the + symbol.
Decrease the thickness of the math operators in STIX.
I understand that the second proposed change is probably a huge change due to the large amount of math operators. But it doesn't seem appropriate to only change the thickness of a few symbols (such as \oplus) since the all math operators seem to have more or less the same thickness. However, the first proposed change seems much more realistic.
Hi! I'm not sure if this suggestion is appropriate/welcome here, but I wanted to bring up what I find to be an issue with STIX. I'm not a font designer, so please bear with me.
Personally, I find many of the math operators in STIX to be too prominent, especially the
\oplussymbol:In my opinion, there are a few problems in the above screenshot here:
\oplussymbol is too large. The lowest point of\oplusis significantly lower than the lowest point of its operands.\oplussymbol is too bold. In the last equation, there is too much contrast between\mathbb{R}and\oplus. I find this to be easily noticeable even when I am not paying attention to it.+and\in, are also too bold. These operators are usually at least as thick as the surrounding characters (if not thicker as in the case of\mathbb{R}and\oplus). I would argue that the math operators should tend to be less thick than the surrounding characters. This seems to be the general philosophy behind other math font designs, so that operands tend toward the foreground and operators tend toward the background.Here is a comparison of STIX with other popular math fonts, which suffer from these problems to a lesser degree.
TeX Gyre Termes:
TeX Gyre Pagella:
Libertinus:
I'm curious if this is something that others agree with. I don't have much knowledge in font design, so it's possible that this is an issue to my eyes alone. If someone with more experience would like to explain why STIX is designed this way, I would really appreciate that.
If others agree with this issue, I would propose the following changes, perhaps in a stylistic set:
\oplussymbol so that its diameter is closer to the diameter of the+symbol.I understand that the second proposed change is probably a huge change due to the large amount of math operators. But it doesn't seem appropriate to only change the thickness of a few symbols (such as
\oplus) since the all math operators seem to have more or less the same thickness. However, the first proposed change seems much more realistic.Please let me know your thoughts!