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Cover looks great, but Wonderland should have a Namer dot. (It's the name of the place.)

--Star

==========
"If you mess with a thing long enough, it'll break."
--Murphy's Laws of Combat.


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>
>From: Michael Everson <everson@...>
>To: shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com
>Sent: Thu, April 1, 2010 5:07:01 AM
>Subject: Re: [shawalphabet] Re: Alice in Shavian
>
> >
>>
>
>Here is a draft the cover.
>
>http://www.evertype .com/fonts/ shavian/shaw- draft-cover. pdf
>
>>To put in perspective how exacting I am hoping to be.. see the ER and the L in "Wonderland" ? It's just "c" and "turned-c". But I will have to move the counter (the hole) in the reversed "c" to the left in order to make the font work (compare the counters in "o").
>
>>There's not so much text in this particular display font, but I think (if I may say so) that it looks pretty good.
>
>>Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/
>
>
>

I think you should keep a version of the font with the finials just because it's so pretty, but I think you're right on stripping them for the rest of the book for readability.

As for my plan for Dracula, my thought is this: If I see a page written in Shavian, and I'm trying to learn it, if there is an English text to read, then my brain's gonna take the easy way out and read the English. BUT introducing one pair at a time, say, replacing every /p/ with Shaw /pip/ and every /b/ with shaw /bib/ but leave the rest in English, then with many repetitions the brain will begin to process it as a substitute rather than skipping it entirely. By the end of the book, (and I admit Dracula is probably not the best to use, maybe one from my PD Andre Norton collection would be better,) then the reader should be reading in full Shavian with NO English text.

Again, I'll post a PDF as soon as I have something.

--Star

==========
"If you mess with a thing long enough, it'll break."
--Murphy's Laws of Combat.


My LJ: http://wodentoad.livejournal.com
Or: http://community.livejournal.com/housewyfs_home/


>
>From: Michael Everson <everson@...>
>To: shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com
>Sent: Thu, April 1, 2010 5:10:48 AM
>Subject: Re: [shawalphabet] Re: Alice in Shavian
>
> >
>>
>
>On 1 Apr 2010, at 02:22, Star Raven wrote:
>
>>> Individually, the letters are beautiful. I actually like the finials on the so, zoo, mime and nun, and if used sparingly as a special text, a bit like some of the fancier script-y fonts, it would be awesome. Really nice work design-wise.
>
>>Well, since De Vinne is the book text, what I need to do is make it less ornate, which I think means stripping most of the ball finials from most of the letters.
>
>>> I'll get back to my work on Dracula again as soon as summer hits and my plan for easing the learning curve, which is inline usage as opposed to opposite page. I'll post a PDF as soon as I'm sure the work will transfer.
>
>>I'm not planning to have opposite-page presentation throughout the book though, just opposite the first page.
>
>>Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/
>
>
>

On 1 Apr 2010, at 12:14, Star Raven wrote:

> Cover looks great,

Nice and legible?

> but Wonderland should have a Namer dot. (It's the name of the place.)

I suppose then so should Lewis and Carroll.

Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/

On 1 Apr 2010, at 12:24, Star Raven wrote:

> I think you should keep a version of the font with the finials just because it's so pretty, but I think you're right on stripping them for the rest of the book for readability.

Not all of them. The ones on letters derived from c and j I shall keep, at least.

Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/

lmao, yes, yes I suppose they should but you wrote Lewis Carroll in TO, which I assumed this is for traditional stocking and listing? As in Instead of listing by C for Carroll but under #-9 for Kick.

--Star

==========
"If you mess with a thing long enough, it'll break."
--Murphy's Laws of Combat.


My LJ: http://wodentoad.livejournal.com
Or: http://community.livejournal.com/housewyfs_home/


>
>From: Michael Everson <everson@...>
>To: shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com
>Sent: Thu, April 1, 2010 7:26:03 AM
>Subject: Re: [shawalphabet] Re: Alice in Shavian
>
> >
>>
>
>On 1 Apr 2010, at 12:14, Star Raven wrote:
>
>>> Cover looks great,
>
>>Nice and legible?
>
>>> but Wonderland should have a Namer dot. (It's the name of the place.)
>
>>I suppose then so should Lewis and Carroll.
>
>>Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/
>
>
>

On 1 Apr 2010, at 13:07, Star Raven wrote:

> lmao,

Erm, why?

> yes, yes I suppose they should but you wrote Lewis Carroll in TO, which I assumed this is for traditional stocking and listing? As in Instead of listing by C for Carroll but under #-9 for Kick.

Of course! It is unlikely that anyone would be going to Amazon googling for "·𐑨𐑤𐑦𐑕'𐑕 𐑩𐑛𐑝𐑧𐑯𐑑𐑿𐑮𐑟 𐑦𐑯 ·𐑢𐑳𐑯𐑛𐑼𐑤𐑨𐑯𐑛
". Actually I'm not sure what the correct policy is for putting this into the Bibliographic database format.

I guess I'll ring the British Library.

Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/

On Thu, Apr 1, 2010 at 1:02 AM, Star Raven <celestraof12worlds@...> wrote:
>
> To be honest, if this was used as an italic form, great, but as
> pages and pages (and /Alice/ is NOT a short work) go by,
> you'd go cross-eyed from attempting to read this.

Agreed -- it seems much too "curly" for me for long stretches of text.

Cheers,
Philip
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>

Michael,

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, Michael Everson wrote:
>
> On 1 Apr 2010, at 02:22, Star Raven wrote:
>
> > Individually, the letters are beautiful. I actually like the finials
on the so, zoo, mime and nun, and if used sparingly as a special text, a
bit like some of the fancier script-y fonts, it would be awesome. Really
nice work design-wise.
>
> Well, since De Vinne is the book text, what I need to do is make it
less ornate, which I think means stripping most of the ball finials from
most of the letters.
>
> > I'll get back to my work on Dracula again as soon as summer hits and
my plan for easing the learning curve, which is inline usage as opposed
to opposite page. I'll post a PDF as soon as I'm sure the work will
transfer.
>
> I'm not planning to have opposite-page presentation throughout the
book though, just opposite the first page.
>
> Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/
>
I really like the look of those ball finials used - as Star wrote -
"sparingly as a special text", i.e. a display font. However, they'd be
a little tiring to read in extended passages.

I wonder why you haven't tried using serifs, rather than balls, as
finials? They really do enhance readability especially in smaller
sizes, as they prevent the astigmatic eye (most people have a small
degree of astigmatism, I believe) from wandering "off the end" of the
strokes - they give definition to each character. They're also visually
lighter than ball finials, which we rarely see, owing (I believe) to
their extra visual weight.

If you compare this text (you'd need to be reading online, or accept
html email) with the text I've quoted, you'll see how legible the serif
text is even at small sizes. To get equivalent legibility in a sans
serif typeface, such as this Verdana, I always increase the text size by
a point or two in word-processed documents or by one size in html.

When you completely remove the finial, you have in effect a sans serif
typeface. Why not try adding serifs, or reducing the size of the ball
finials?

Regards,
Yahya

------------------------------------------------------------------------\
--------

Yahya Abdal-Aziz
Wheelers Hill
Victoria
Australia

On 6 Apr 2010, at 08:56, yahya_melb wrote:

> I really like the look of those ball finials used - as Star wrote - "sparingly as a special text", i.e. a display font. However, they'd be a little tiring to read in extended passages.

I think this is because there are too many of the ball finials for the face.

> I wonder why you haven't tried using serifs, rather than balls, as finials?

Because this is a Shavian version of De Vinne.

> They really do enhance readability especially in smaller sizes, as they prevent the astigmatic eye (most people have a small degree of astigmatism, I believe) from wandering "off the end" of the strokes - they give definition to each character. They're also visually lighter than ball finials, which we rarely see, owing (I believe) to their extra visual weight.

See ftp://evertype%40evertype.com:@.../public_html/fonts/shavian/alice-Latn-Shaw.png to see the original De Vinne and my Shavianization of it. I need to reduce the numbers of the ball finials in order to make it less ornate.

> When you completely remove the finial, you have in effect a sans serif typeface. Why not try adding serifs, or reducing the size of the ball finials?

No, as I say it's a question of how many letters have the ball. Fewer letters have them in the Latin original, for instance.

Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/

http://www.evertype.com/fonts/shavian/alice-Latn-Shaw-2.png is much "lighter" and easier to read, because many ball-finials have been changed to t-finials. I am pretty sure that there are some letter collisions still, but on the whole I would say that the text us much more legible. I suppose some s-serifs might be added to MIME and NUN... or? Any suggestions? Any letters whose base-shapes are just "not right"?

Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/