FWIW, here's how URW dealt with it in its version of Cooper Black (essentially, putting the bar on the ascender only to the right).



<http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/urw/cooper/black-d/opentype-ps/260370/charmap.html?vid=260370&cpselect=uni3>

I don't think the URW solution is very convincing. In such an extreme case, I would a) remove the top serif and straighten that side of the stem, and b) lower the top of the bowl as much as possible without distorting the form too much, in order to create space for the crossbar. Something like this (hacked in Photoshop, so not very tidy):



It is more important in designing diacritic letters for languages to preserve the particular identity of those letters than it is to preserve the particular details of a serif. This means being aware of the primary distinguishing features of the letter, in this case a bar that crosses through the ascender, and coming up with a way to preserve those features while preserving as much as possible of the characteristic details of the typeface design.

interesting...
i had read in Typo 10 that "In extra bold characters, the part of the slash inside of the character may be omitted." So i wasn't particularly shocked to see the URW example (I just hadn't seen anything like it before). I personally think John's is a better solution; but not being a native reader of any language that uses this character, i don't know which is the "preferred" design.

Obviously, a different letter in a different culture, but Gunnlaugur Briem suggests that for the lower case eth, shortening or omitting the bar can be done as a last resort when designing heavy versions of the glyph. See the last paragraph at: <http://briem.ismennt.is/2/2.1a/2.1.4.eth.htm>.

Whether or not this also applies to the Croatian dyet is an interesting question. I do like John Hudson's mock-up a better solution than the URW sample, though.

I suspect the comment in Type 10 is based on examination on what has been done in some fonts, rather than consideration of whether these solutions are good. As a last resort, I think the URW solution is acceptable, but my point is that they were not in a last resort situation, because there were other options available which are more successful in preserving the normative form of the letter.

> It is more important in designing diacritic
> letters for languages to preserve the particular
> identity of those letters than it is to preserve
> the particular details of a serif.

I think it depends. For example, if the font is for display, and if the particular character in question benefits from great linguistic context-richness (meaning that in actual usage it's quite unlikely to be confused for its "twin") then I would say that Regularity (eg not making the bowl of the "d" smaller) might be more important.

> I suspect the comment in Type 10 is based on
> examination on what has been done in some fonts

I think you could give more credit to the natives here; they can "feel" what is an optimal solution, where non-natives can only think and guess.

hhp

But the vast majority of non-western fonts are not made by natives. Were the comments in Typo 10 re. Croatian letterforms written by a Croat, or were they written by someone who has looked at a pile of CE fonts and recorded what he has seen? I don't remember. In any case, I've read e.g. rubbish written about Hindi type by Indians: basically, I think it is good to be cautious when someone says 'This form is good/normal/acceptable'. What are the criteria of judgement? How historically extensive is this view (often, it represents what one or two generations have gotten used to from type, and is cut off from the traditions of the script -- you know that from your experience of Arabic)? I certainly wouldn't say that one should discount the views of native readers -- definitely not --, but one needs to approach them critically just as you would any other view. You certainly can't assume that because someone is a native he or she can 'feel' a way to a design solution.

well the guys that put together Typo ARE Czech... a lot closer to Croatia than we are here in America. I had Filip Bla

No doubt that Type 10 is a great resource. It is good that it even considers e.g. how Croatian diacritics might be made for ultra heavy types: this is the sort of question that much commentary on diacritic design fails to consider. I'm just saying that years of research into the typography of other languages have encouraged me to take most information with a big grain of salt, especially when someone says 'This is the way we do it in our country'. My immediate response is 'How long have you been doing this in your country?' Often, they don't know, and research indicates that it is a new development, frequently in response to some technical limitation, or a time saving measure (certainly, URW's solution for the Cooper Black dcroat is a lot easier and faster than mine), or, ironically, something introduced two generations ago by an outsider.

John, I certainly agree that you can't assume "total" knowledge just because somebody is native. The good news in this case is that not only was it written by Bla

thank you for the detailed considerations, John. It's important to consider all of these things when designing, isn't it? I always appreciate your time and value your oppinions in educating me on some of these finer points. thanks again for your help.

Thanks for looking up the credits, Hrant. Yes, Mededovi&#263; sounds like a likely Croat name.

I just took a look at Typo 10, and the observation 'In extra bold characters, the part of the slash inside of the character may be omitted' clearly refers, from the preceding context, to the /oslash/. It is not at all clear that the same applies to all the barred and slashed characters discussed in this section.

> Czech... a lot closer to Croatia
> than we are here in America

Of course Filip Blazek's article on diacritics is very good. But it's not really something you obtain with your parents' genes.

This doesn't necessarily prove anything Polish type designers usually don't have a clue how to make Czech haceks, and Czech type designers often make awful Polish ogoneks.

The U.S. are immediate neighbors to Mexico (where Spanish is spoken) and Canada (French spoken in Quebec). Nonetheless, I doubt an average American type designer has seen a lot of French-Canadian or Mexican-Spanish typographic material.

Similarly, an average Polish has seen more German, French and English typography than Czech or Hungarian.

In Europe, typographic traditions differ from country to country. Actually, I can say that in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (the former "Soviet Bloc"), the knowledge of typographic traditions of the neighbors has been limited in the past years. In the past century, the typographic cross-influences in the countries of that region were less intense than in Western Europe.

Designing good characters for a certain language requires serious research and a sensitivity in balancing international and local issues.

Altogether, the CE characters in URW fonts are rather poorly designed. Based on my intuition, I can say that URW's solution in Cooper Black is convincing:

But so is John Hudson's draft.

However, what one would need to look at is the Yugoslav graphic design tradition from the 2nd half of the 20th century.

In my experience, the Czechoslovakian, Polish and Russian display typography of that period gives best clues for analogical cases in the questions of Polish and Czech diacritics in display typefaces, and of Cyrillic display type design.

You can take a look at some Yugoslavian posters at: http://www.musicman.com/yugo/yugo.html

Unfortunately, most lettering there is uppercase-only, and I haven't been able to spot a bold dcroat in this collection.

Conclusion: I have a sense that URW's solution is acceptable.

Regards,
Adam

Only, I think in URW's solution, the diacritic half-stroke is not pronounced enough. It should be a bit thicker and larger.

Adam

Adam, that Yugoslav poster site is wonderful. I had a good chuckle over the translation of the musical 'Grease' as 'Briljantina'.

As a native Croat (with dcroat in surname) i prefer John's solution.

regards

As native Croat courently in Den Hague in TypeMedia, dcroat is known to me and its mostly an aesthetic decision, of course in this extreme example John has a point, but there should be higher contrast between 'croathbar' (name of the croat horizontal bar when generating accents with programs like robofab). One way is to cut of the serif and instead add some more weight at the top, not whole thing, just cut off and curve it a little bit. But that's only for this extreme examples. ----URW's solution:::: FOREGET about it

Dcroat was first introduced in 1892. in grammar book by Ivan Broz, by influence of Djuro Danicica, They say that Djuro was inventor of Dcroat in 1878. Dcroat as type form was taken from old german, and islandic influence.