Re: [DejaVu-fonts] Request regarding Hebrew fonts

[Nicolas M. <nic...@la...>]

Le Lun 28 mai 2007 19:36, Yotam Benshalom a écrit :

> I am afraid that this is just the tip of the iceberg, because, as I
> told
> you, I have no experience with font design. I'm afraid that the
> current
> Hebrew implementation is highly problematic, and I would like you to
> consider seriously replacing the entire Hebrew font with something
> more professional,

Hi Yotam,

You should know font design is as dependant on the font reviewers as
on the people who create the fonts. You can have DejaVu Hebrew block
improved quite a lot through extensive reviewing, with screenshots
showcasing specific problems and others showing how other fonts got it
right (according to you). Current DejaVu quality directly reflects the
level of review Hebrew users (yes there were some) did in the past.

The original Vera latin core was revised several times to take
feedback into account while being released by the GNOME foundation.
That's one reason the result is awesome, not just because it was
created by Bitstream's top professional designer working on its native
script.

Like many modern fonts optimized for screen in addition to print Vera
core design is slightly larger than the previous generation of font.
Also the the glyph stoke is somewhat constrained by the choices made
for latin. People who never used a font like Vera are choked at first
by its feel. They find it "fat" or "round". But after some time to
adapt they usually grow to love its pleasing inner balance, even
though the style is different from common second-part-of-20th-century
fonts (You can easily find round latin glyphs in books printed before
computerization generalized a few select narrow font styles. And now
design is reverting to less narrow glyphs)

The problem with the DejaVu Hebrew block is probably not its core
design, but that it's not as balanced as the Latin block (some glyphs
sequences don't "work"), or that some glyphs are less good than the
others. Let's fix these specific problems and then we can discuss
general style choices. You can't really judge if a style works or not
if little mistakes ruin the overall impression.

So please focus on pointing to the font designers where they got
Hebrew wrong (with as much nitpicking as required), and let them be
judge of the technical means to fix the font. It's more work for you
on the short term but I'm sure you'll be quite happy with the results.

Regards,

-- 
Nicolas Mailhot