Lady’s Gitweb - OldStandard/blob - FONTLOG.txt

   1 FONTLOG
   2 Old Standard font family
   3 ========================
   4
   5 This file provides detailed information on the Old Standard family of
   6 fonts. This information should be distributed along with the Old Standard
   7 fonts and any derivative works.
   8
   9 Basic Font Information
  10 ----------------------
  11
  12 The Old Standard font family is an attempt to revive a specific type of
  13 Modern (classicist) style of serif typefaces, very commonly used in various
  14 editions printed in the late 19th and early 20th century, but almost
  15 completely  abandoned later. Although contemporary typographers often
  16 consider this lettertype obsolete and out-of-fashion, it still has at least
  17 two advantages:
  18
  19 -- The classicist style still can be considered a good choice for
  20 typesetting scientific papers, especially on social and humanitarian
  21 sciences, as its specific features are closely associated in the people's
  22 eyes with old books they learned on;
  23
  24 -- the most beautiful examples of Greek and Cyrillic lettertypes were all
  25 based on the Modern style, so that for those scripts "Modern" fonts
  26 are much more appropriate than any contemporary (e. g. Times-based)
  27 designs.
  28
  29 That's why the Old Standard font family has two main purposes: it is
  30 intended to be used as a specialized font for philologists (mainly
  31 classicists, germanists and slavists) and also as a general-purpose font
  32 for typesetting various  editions in languages which use Greek or Cyrillic
  33 script. For this reason Old Standard provides glyphs for a wide range of
  34 Latin, Greek and Cyrillic characters.
  35
  36 The name "Old Standard" was selected as opposed to the "Obyknovennaya
  37 Novaya" ("New Standard") typeface, widely used in the Soviet typography,
  38 which represents another, slightly different type of the same Modern style.
  39 The digital version of this font is now available from Paratype
  40 (http://www.paratype.ru). Of course this name doesn't look very original,
  41 but it seems to be a good choice for a revival of the most common
  42 lettertype of the early 20th century.
  43
  44 ChangeLog
  45 ---------
  46
  47 2020 December 18 (Robert Alessi) Version 2.6
  48
  49     * Added 2nd pointer to Alexey Kryukov's archived webpage.
  50
  51     * Added and updated FONTLOG.txt (this file).
  52
  53     * New file: OldStandard.fontspec. Slanted shapes for regular and bold are
  54       now available through the 'FakeSlant' feature of fontspec.
  55
  56     * Updated naming schemes in BoldItalic. Thanks to Jontxo Reig for
  57       testing.
  58
  59 2020 February 24 (Robert Alessi) Version 2.5
  60
  61     * Updated documentation and makefile.
  62
  63     * Better g caron.
  64
  65     * Added missing small capitals Ā, Ī and Ū.
  66
  67     * Added font table.
  68
  69     * Reset all hinting information and instructions.
  70
  71     * Removed duplicate c2sc and smcp rules.
  72
  73     * Added small capitals for all Greek accented letters.
  74
  75 2019 July 26 (Robert Alessi) Version 2.4a
  76
  77     * Reshaped macron, acute, grave and j in BoldItalic.
  78
  79 2019 July 25 (Robert Alessi) Version 2.4
  80
  81     * Added auto-generated BoldItalic.
  82
  83 2019 July 24 (Robert Alessi) Version 2.3 (1.0 in the current git repo)
  84
  85     * Fixed missing direction in U+2023.
  86
  87     * fixed missing control points, wrong coordinates and directions
  88       in OldStandardT-Italic.sfd.
  89
  90     * Added g caron.
  91
  92     * Added small capitals in Regular (French, German, Italian,
  93       Spanish, Basic Russian and Arabic DMG).
  94
  95     * Make +ss06 work if beta is preceded by a vowel with an accute
  96       accent taken from the Greek Extended Unicode block.
  97
  98 2011 April 30 (Alexey Kryukov) Version 2.2
  99
 100     * Latin Extended Additional (again, except Vietnamese and
 101       medievalist additions) for Bold and Italic.
 102
 103     * More punctuation characters, including New Testament critical
 104       signs.
 105
 106     * New implementation for the 'frac' feature: it is now possible to
 107       build any arbitrary fractions rather than just those available
 108       in Unicode in the precomposed form.
 109
 110     * SIL's Graphite rendering technologie is now supported. The
 111       features available are mostly the same as for OpenType, but
 112       there are some additions (in particular it is possible to render
 113       a Greek text with accents above capitals).  The manual has also
 114       been changed to reflect the new functionality.
 115
 116     * Cosmetic glyph changes (foots/arms in Cyrillic 'Ka', 'Zhe', 'Ya'
 117       in particular).
 118
 119     * Added human-readable stylistic set names (US English only) and
 120       style (sub-family) names in a few additional languages.
 121
 122     * The fonts are now available also in the WOFF format to simplify
 123       embedding into web pages.
 124
 125 2009 November 18 (Alexey Kryukov) Version 2.1 (not released)
 126
 127     * The "Greek and Coptic" Unicode range is now fully covered,
 128       except Coptic letters. The epigraphic letters have been
 129       implemented in a simple sans-serif style: I don't like
 130       "creativity" if it can result in producing urecognizable glyphs.
 131
 132     * Regular and bold: New alternate glyphs for Cyrillic IE
 133       (U+0415/U+0435) and Ukrainian IE (U+0404/U+0454), used by
 134       default for Church Slavonic. The intent is to make Old Cyrillic
 135       YEST clearly distinguishable both from Latin E and "wide" YEST.
 136
 137     * New glyphs for CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER MONOGRAPH UK (in all 3
 138       styles).
 139
 140     * I have implemented a k-shaped kappa in all three styles, a
 141       script rho in regular and bold and a rho with straignt tail in
 142       italic. These characters (except the script rho) are kept
 143       unencoded and can be accessed via the 'mgrk' feature tag. I
 144       don't think they would be very useful, but at least it is now
 145       possible to use Old Standard for typesetting a copy of the
 146       Unicode Greek codechart (I needed one for a book I was
 147       preparing).
 148
 149     * Multiple cosmetic glyph changes. In particular Latin capital
 150       "C", "E", "F", "G", "L" and related glyphs have got heavier
 151       vertical serifs in the regular font.  Cedilla is redesigned
 152       (once again) in regular and bold. Shapes of some Greek letters
 153       (including alternate beta and theta) have also been improved.
 154
 155     * I no longer use custom PUA mappings. I have preserved PUA
 156       codepoints for a few standard glyphs (including capital accents)
 157       previously mapped there by Adobe, as well as for additional
 158       accented Greek characters implemented for compatibility with
 159       Ralph Hancock's fonts. Everything else has been moved outside
 160       the encoding.
 161
 162     * Oops. I was wrong regarding "zhe with breve": this letter
 163       actually should be formed with a standard (Latin) breve rather
 164       than a Cyrillic telephone receiver-like accent. BTW I think rhis
 165       letter should be available in the font: since I already support
 166       historical Romanian characters, the modern Moldavian Cyrillic
 167       alphabet should be supported as well.
 168
 169     * The regular font now includes most accented characters from the
 170       Latin Extended Additional range (but not Vietnamese).
 171
 172 2008 November 18 (Alexey Kryukov) Version 2.0
 173
 174     * A bold version is now available!
 175
 176     * Added a full set of historical Cyrillic characters, as defined
 177       in Unicode 5.1;
 178
 179     * Implemented Roman numerals and ancient Roman epigraphic letters
 180       (including Claudian letters).
 181
 182     * Switched to lookup-based representation of the OpenType data in
 183       the source files to conform the new FontForge's file format;
 184
 185     * Now both cubic and quadratic versions of the font outlines are
 186       stored in the same source files (one file for each style), as
 187       FontForge's new approach to multilayered fonts allows this;
 188
 189     * Switched to OFL version 1.1;
 190
 191     * FontForge now can generate reasonably good TTF instructions (it
 192       could not when OldStandard v. 1.0 was released). So the TTF
 193       fonts are now automatically instructed with FontForge. I still
 194       include the old instructions for the regular version (prepared
 195       with Peter Baker's xgridfit utility) into the source package,
 196       but they are no longer used in the font itself. This certainly
 197       makes some glyphs look worse, but improves the overall
 198       performance of the font (especially in the antialiased mode);
 199
 200     * Danish Aringacute redesigned (now has the acute at the top of
 201       the ring and a specially designed, reduced in size, diacritic
 202       for the capital glyph);
 203
 204     * Redesigned cedilla and all combinations with this accent in the
 205       upright font;
 206
 207     * More contour cleanup;
 208
 209     * Added accented combinations with "W" for Welsh;
 210
 211     * Added several new math characters to the regular font. The
 212       intent was to fully cover the TeX OMS encoding, but this task is
 213       still far from being reached;
 214
 215     * There is now a dedicated Unicode codepoint for capital insular
 216       "G" (U+A77D), so move the corresponding glyph to that location;
 217
 218     * Corrected the shape of Greek symbol phi (U+03D5). It is still
 219       not recommended to use this glyph instead of the normal (looped)
 220       form;
 221
 222     * Several new characters have been added, including the Latin
 223       letter EZH (U+01B7/U+0292) and capital Es Zett for German
 224       (U+1E9E). There are some new combining marks as well;
 225
 226     * I used to consider the breve accent should always take the
 227       typically Cyrillic form when used after Cyrillic
 228       letters. However this assumption seems to be wrong: the specific
 229       form of the diacritic is actually an attribute of just three
 230       letters, i. e. "short i" (Russian etc.), "Short u"
 231       (Byelorussian) and "zhe with breve" (Moldavian).
 232
 233 2007 July 14 (Alexey Kryukov) Version 1.1 (not released)
 234
 235     * Added Latin letters OPEN E and OPEN O, requested by an African
 236       user;
 237
 238     * New glyph for ampersand in the upright font;
 239
 240     * Redesigned Polish ogonek and Czech comma-like caron;
 241
 242     * More work on italic Greek letters;
 243
 244     * General contour cleanup for some glyphs.
 245
 246 2007 January 22 (Alexey Kryukov) Version 1.0
 247
 248     * Added the WHITE SQUARE (U+25A1) character;
 249
 250     * Minor corrections in the fonts themselves and in the PDF manual.
 251
 252 2006 December 12 (Alexey Kryukov) Version 0.9
 253
 254     * Added a few more Latin Extended-B characters, yogh and wynn in
 255       particular (thanks to Peter Baker for the valuable information
 256       on the design of the letter yogh he provided). I also have
 257       implemented uppercase and lowercase versions of the insular
 258       "g". Thus Old Standard is now suitable for typesetting texts in
 259       Old and Middle English.
 260
 261     * Added Hebrew aleph and a few Fraktur characters, useful for
 262       critical apparatus, especially in Bible/New Testament editions.
 263
 264     * Implemented a full set of standard f-ligatures, present in most
 265       OpenType fonts.
 266
 267     * Andrew Panov has convinced me to implement a set of mathematical
 268       glyphs, designed in the style of traditional Russian math
 269       typesetting. These glyphs are currently available only in the
 270       regular version of the font.
 271
 272     * A PDF manual, explaining various features of the font, is now
 273       available.
 274
 275     * Greek sampi (both uppercase and lowercase) has been redesigned.
 276
 277     * Implemented Greek lunate epsilon and reversed lunate epsilon
 278       (the design doesn't match the remaining Greek letters
 279       though). Thus all Unicode slots intended for "alternate" and
 280       mathematical Greek glyphs are now covered.
 281
 282     * A few improvements in the TTF instructions for the regular font
 283       (drop-out control has been enabled).
 284
 285     * Several minor corrections in the OpenType layouts.
 286
 287 2006 October 01 (Alexey Kryukov) Version 0.8
 288
 289     * Implemented a set of TrueType instructions (hints) for the
 290       regular font (italics are still unhinted). I would like to thank
 291       Peter Baker for his excellent (and extremely well documented)
 292       xgridfit program (http://xgridfit.sourceforge.net), which
 293       provides a good Open Source solution for gridfitting, or
 294       "hinting," TrueType fonts.
 295
 296     * The TrueType version of the regular font now has a separate
 297       source file (OldStandard.ttf.sfd) with quadratic splines.
 298
 299     * Changed the naming convention for the TrueType version: the font
 300       name now has a "TT" suffix, so that both TTF and OTF versions
 301       can be installed on the same system simultaneously.
 302
 303     * Added a few Latin Extended-B characters, useful mainly for
 304       germanists, in particular "b" with bar, "o" with ogonek and
 305       hwair.  Also I have corrected shapes of lowercase eth and
 306       thorn. Thus Old Standard now includes all characters necessary
 307       for representing Old Icelandic texts and Gothic
 308       transliteration. Still more characters (the most important of
 309       them being uppercase and lowercase yogh) are needed for a proper
 310       support of Old/Middle English.
 311
 312     * As usual, a few minor bugs have been corrected.
 313
 314 2006 June 09 (Alexey Kryukov) Version 0.7
 315
 316     * Added OpenType layouts for Latin, Greek and Cyrillic. Special
 317       attention has been paid to correct shaping and positioning of
 318       diacritical marks.
 319
 320     * Minor corrections of glyph shapes.
 321
 322 2006 May 08 (Alexey Kryukov) Version 0.6
 323
 324     * License changed to the SIL Open Font License.
 325
 326     * Added Greek glyphs, including those in the U+1F00--U+1FFF "Greek
 327       Extended" Unicode range.
 328
 329     * Ukrainian and Serbian Cyrillic glyphs were redesigned in order
 330       to bring them into a better correspondance with real examples of
 331       the early 20th century printing.
 332
 333     * The standard mathematical operation signs were redesigned and
 334       significantly enlarged, so that now their implementation
 335       contradicts to the contemporary standards, but better
 336       corresponds to the European tradition of math typesetting.
 337
 338     * Several additional math characters, needed to provide a full
 339       coverage for the Mac Roman encoding, have been added.
 340
 341     * Ancient Greek metrical characters (U+23D1--U+23D9) have been
 342       implemented.
 343
 344     * A TTF version is released in addition to OpenType-CFF fonts. It
 345       has no hinting at all, so don't complain for bad screen
 346       rendering!
 347
 348 2006 Feb 14 (Alexey Kryukov) Version 0.2
 349
 350     * First public release.
 351
 352 Acknowledgements
 353 ----------------
 354 (Here is where contributors can be acknowledged. If you make modifications
 355 be sure to add your name (N), email (E), web-address (W) and description
 356 (D). This list is sorted by last name in alphabetical order.)
 357
 358 N: Alexey Kryukov
 359 E: alexios@thessalonica.org.ru
 360 W: http://www.thessalonica.org.ru
 361 D: Original Designer of Latin, Greek and Cyrillic glyphs
 362
 363 For more information please visit the Fonts page on Thessalonica's
 364 website: http://www.thessalonica.org.ru/en/fonts.html.
 365
 366 Or send an email to <alexios at thessalonica dot org dot ru>.
 367
 368 N: Robert Alessi
 369 E: alessi@robertalessi.net
 370 W: http://www.robertalessi.net
 371 D: Current maintainer of Old Standard