Shingaling & Bandipur-Dark Kannada

[Pria Ravichandran]

Hello Fonters.,

John Vargas Beltran has worked on single weight beautiful display Latin called Shingaling and I've tried to extend it to Kannada (Bandipur Dark). The git repo is available at:

https://github.com/VanillaandCream/Bandipur-Dark

We are yet to add the final version of the Latin and there are some sizing issues, along with reph not functioning too well at the moment. Test docs are also pending. For the Kannada, http://www.impallari.com/testing/index-kannada.php is very handy, which is what we are using. Thanks Pablo.

Vaishnavi Murthy has generously given a lot of feedback on Bandipur Dark. Below are the emails exchanged between Vaishnavi and me for reference.

Please do comment. We'd love to hear all your feedback.

Thanks and Best

Pria

On Sun, Oct 18, 2015 at 4:21 AM, Dave Crossland <da...@lab6.com> wrote:

I'll explain on the group, please post this there

On Oct 17, 2015 6:44 PM, "Pria Ravichandran" <saysomethin...@gmail.com> wrote:

Okay, will include Latin tomorrow. Kannada needs a lot more leading, not sure this is a great idea...

On Sat, Oct 17, 2015 at 10:41 PM, Dave Crossland <da...@lab6.com> wrote:

Single family. Include the latin you have,

On 17 October 2015 at 18:39, Pria Ravichandran <saysomethin...@gmail.com> wrote:

Here it is:

https://github.com/VanillaandCream/Bandipur-Dark

On Sat, Oct 17, 2015 at 10:34 PM, Pria Ravichandran <saysomethin...@gmail.com> wrote:

Without the Latin? Are they going to be released as one, or two families? ie Shingaling and Bandipur?

On Sat, Oct 17, 2015 at 10:25 PM, Dave Crossland <da...@lab6.com> wrote:

Please start the github repo :) 

On 17 October 2015 at 18:18, Pria Ravichandran <saysomethin...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello V.,

Hope you are well.

I've finally completed Bandipur (or so I think). Attached all the production files along with this email. 

Here are some highlights of the typeface:

1. The Ottu characters are aligned in a single line, to keep it consistent with the Latin, which has very little variation in the x-height, and has an impactful presence.

2. I wonder if the Reph form is functioning well? There doesn't seem to be one method of doing it.

3. The Latin has overlapping characters:

In my proposal I had mentioned that I will attempt the same in the Kannada. But looking at the nature of the script and the amount of overlap that is happening already, and the form of Kannada (which is not allowing much room for such stuff), I am not sure variants like this is possible. Any suggestions on this?

Looking forward to your comments.

Best,

Pria

-- 

Cheers
Dave

-- 

Cheers
Dave

 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Vaishnavi Murthy <vaishna...@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Sep 3, 2015 at 2:37 PM
Subject: Re: Bandipur Kannada
To: Pria Ravichandran <saysomethin...@gmail.com>

Ok, they look similar in widths now. A few things you might want to see -- I can be made wider, NA narrower, TTA more boxy. AI and EE height you can look at and AI can be made a bit wider keeping in-line with I. These things you see immediately. Take a look at the head-strokes. It looks a bit tilted in RA and similar shapes.

On 3 September 2015 at 18:41, Pria Ravichandran <saysomethin...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi V.,

Please find updates, I really hope this version is okay!

Thanks again.

P

On Thu, Sep 3, 2015 at 4:01 PM, Pria Ravichandran <saysomethin...@gmail.com> wrote:

Yes., can we chat on fb., and now I dont know what to do with the widths...

On Thu, Sep 3, 2015 at 4:01 PM, Vaishnavi Murthy <vaishna...@gmail.com> wrote:

Pria, what does Liang mean by this "And it's indeed in my plan to transform most of them into glyph seuqences which rely on <kern>/<dist>", you know? 

On 3 September 2015 at 15:56, Vaishnavi Murthy <vaishna...@gmail.com> wrote:

Sounds interesting Pria. But am not sure how-much I'll be able to contribute to this really :D

On 3 September 2015 at 11:22, Pria Ravichandran <saysomethin...@gmail.com> wrote:

Some are done by the shaping engine, and you can use a combination of GPOS and GSUB features to get them to work. Infact, after the widths are fixed thats our next job, we will try and design this Kannada as components, IE., not create hundreds of glyphs, but contextually choose what works with what glyphs. Maybe we can work together on it so you get a good introduction to opentype features?

On Thu, Sep 3, 2015 at 10:11 AM, Vaishnavi Murthy <vaishna...@gmail.com> wrote:

all -- vowels marks and vattus :D

On 3 September 2015 at 10:10, Pria Ravichandran <saysomethin...@gmail.com> wrote:

Which combining marks?

On Thu, Sep 3, 2015 at 12:57 AM, Vaishnavi Murthy <vaishna...@gmail.com> wrote:

Oh, I wanted to ask you, how do you get these combining marks to work man? I'm not able to figure it out. Do you add anchors?

On 3 September 2015 at 00:56, Vaishnavi Murthy <vaishna...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hoi,

The height of the vowels is your call. I agree making it the same size will help reduce the unevenness. Take a look at how the counters are. It might help you with the spottiness. 

Have attached a PDF that might help you with the widths. I can imagine making this contrast that falls on the sides can be nightmare while defining the widths. I guess that's why the contrast is usually the reverse of what you're working on.

The top lines (its called Talekattu) are a bit uneven throughout. Do check the stroke behaviour for consistency. 

-V

On 2 September 2015 at 22:12, Pria Ravichandran <saysomethin...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Vaishnavi.,

Please find attached ttf and PDF file. I think I've incorporated all your comments and fixed the spacing to the best of my ability. I am okay with not keeping the vowels larger, as its a display font and is already highly uneven. Colour is one thing that worries me and I will be looking into it tomorrow as well. Are all the widths working? I think it's highly unlikely that they are all okay now. Would love to hear your thoughts on this along with all other details that you notice.

Thanks in advance for the inputs. FYI, nice profile pic on gmail.

Best,

Pria

On Wed, Sep 2, 2015 at 11:22 AM, Pria Ravichandran <saysomethin...@gmail.com> wrote:

Okay, cool., Let me rework it and email you.

On Wed, Sep 2, 2015 at 11:13 AM, Vaishnavi Murthy <vaishna...@gmail.com> wrote:

Noo.. not a Dash, a line hahaha.

On 2 September 2015 at 11:13, Vaishnavi Murthy <vaishna...@gmail.com> wrote:

I meant : You need to add a small vertical DASH at the bottom to make it a CHA.

On 2 September 2015 at 11:12, Vaishnavi Murthy <vaishna...@gmail.com> wrote:

Sure, if you're comfortable with the paid consultant thing.

NNA is like this :

 

(http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/0ca3/browsertest.htm)

Loot at that top indent. Right now, its missing  :

CHA is quite straight-forward. You need to add a small vertical at the bottom to make it a CHA.

-V

On 2 September 2015 at 11:04, Pria Ravichandran <saysomethin...@gmail.com> wrote:

Yes, yes V., when Dave wants we can just publish these emails.

One clarification:

There are two characters that need fixing -- NNA and CHA. 

How to fix this/ or what needs to be fixed?

I am working on the rest now, will keep you updated.

Thanks a ton V., please could you be a paid consultant on this project? Discuss the details on chat.

Best,

Pria

On Wed, Sep 2, 2015 at 10:19 AM, Vaishnavi Murthy <vaishna...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hahha, Pria, this formality is intimidating. Is this for Google guys?

I have a couple of things I'd like to point to. Since this is early stages of your design, I'm not sure how relevant they are as these might be things you'd want to fix along the way anyway. However, I'm going to put them down here:

• There are two characters that need fixing -- NNA and CHA. 
• SA's dot needs to be towards the centre. 
• LLLA and RRA look similar.
• Avagraha looks like an S. Take a closer look at this form. The top bit needs to be a bit smaller and flatter.
• TTA stands out. The curves look smoother than the rest.
• Digits : 6 looks big and 7, 9 look small
• Jihvamuliya and Upadhmaniya are peculiar in their behaviour with combining forms. I still am a bit confused as to how Upadhmaniya really behaves. Jihvamuliya often stands-out in a text. Its drawn a bit larger--aligning to the top of the tall vowels like E.
• As Brahmi was evolving into other scripts, vowels were initially distinct form other consonants and semi-vowels in their form as they appeared without the top mark and were at times slightly larger. This remained so till recently in Kannada. You can look at how tall you want to make the vowels in this respect. AI in particular can be made taller.
• The character proportions are a bit uneven. A few of them look narrow and others very wide and drawn-out. I can imagine this to be a challenge especially when you have a style like the one you're working on (good luck Pria :D). To give you an example of what I'm trying to say, I'd suggest looking at RA and LA. RA looks condensed and LA looks normal and LLA looks wide and SA looks extra wide and HA looks a point size smaller. 
• The colour is not even. I know this is not such an issue for display but maybe evening it out a bit might be nice. What is the smallest point-size you're look at for this? 

That's it for now I guess. Hope that's of some use to you.

-V

[Dave Crossland]

Thanks pria! The vertical metrics problem is balanced against duplication of Latins in the library, so if you can show me how the v metrics of the kannada is a problem for latin only text i can reconsider, but the default choice today is to minimize library duplication

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[vaishnavi Murthy]

Hi Pria,

Attached is some more stuff for you to look at.

Best,

Vaishnavi

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[Vaishnavi Murthy]

Also, I wasn't able to text the below base / post base forms. They aren't working on my system. Do let me know if you have another file to share for this.

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[Joana Silva]

Hi Pria, 

I looked at the file and it feels like a great challenge to fit the shapes of Kannada in this style. Saying this, it seams to me you are doing a great job. I cannot talk too much about Kannada and in the dark is even harder. But I would say that sometimes, even in the Latin it feels like there are too many points in the shapes. And maybe they could be more clear and decisive, if this makes any sense. But it's a great project. 

Are there other weights? 

Cheers, 

Joana Correia 

[Pria Ravichandran]

Hi Vaishnavi and Joanna., I've updated the Reph function and made some characters slightly more even in colour. Please will you have a look and comment.

Thanks and Best

Pria

[Vaishnavi Murthy]

Hi Pria,

NA can be made a bit narrower I guess.

Take a look at ಙೆ  & ಞೆ, they need those additional bits at the bottom of the combining E mark. I would say that if they existed in handwritten forms, then, what you've made looks possible. Since these forms were more or less created during early hot-metal times, the combining E v. marks had this bit by default and this (clumsy construction) is retained as a standard form for these characters even today.

I'm not sure if I'm looking at the right file (I downloaded the TTF file from your github page a few minutes ago), but the Reph forms seem to be breaking   when the following consonant combines with any other forms. 

Best,

Vaishnavi

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[Erin McLaughlin]

Hi Pria! 

I have looked at your Bandipur project and have some suggestions for you in the attached .pdf

(Dave, could you forward this on, in case she is no longer checking the thread! It has been several months since the last post!)

Very cool project! I hope these ideas are helpful!

Thanks,

Erin

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