Spacing problems with connected font

Design
1

I’m working on a connected script font and am trying to limit the kerning as much as possible. To make the characters connect smoothly, what I did was to use the entrance and exit strokes of the “r” and to paste them on the other characters. However, this sometimes creates spacing problems, since some characters are narrower than others. I’ve tried to change the angle of these entrance and exit strokes, but that doesn’t make it any better.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how to solve or maybe make it less of a problem?

2

If the outstrokes end in the same position, then all LSBs must be set to match the out stroke of the previous letter. There are some letters that will have to have an exception, which you can code in contextual alternates.

But I am not really sure I understand the problem. I would need to have a look at the design to suggest something.

3

Thank you.
That’s what I’ve been doing, matching all LSBs with the exit strokes.
It still creates a spacing problem. Especially with characters like v, w, z, x, o, r, s.
This is probably not the best example, but you can see in the image that there is more white space between “ar” than with the other characters.

I was just wondering if there was maybe a way to circumvent this without having to do that much kerning.

1 Like
4

What I do is I have different exit strokes depending on the following letter.

Or you can redraw the left halves of the letters until the same exit stroke fits. But that would be quite a significant design change. I recommend viewing the video of Victoria Rushton’s presentation at Typographics 2016.

5

Thank you. That makes sense. I’m also creating ligatures for some combinations, but had never thought of having different exit strokes. That would solve some of the problems I’m having.

I can’t find the video you’ve mentioned. Do you have a link for that?

6

Can’t find it either right now. Perhaps it is not published yet. Keep looking for Type@Cooper/Typographics2016 videos.

7

I will. Thanks

8

I’ve just happened to find the video and am sharing it just in case anyone finds it useful.
Victoria’s Ruston presentation starts at 2:16
http://2016.typographics.com/livestream/

1 Like