SCORE-based fonts

Music notation symbols, fonts, font sources and font creation, SmuFL.
Harpsichordmaker
Posts: 62
Joined: 10 Apr 2016, 08:19

Re: SCORE-based fonts

Post by Harpsichordmaker »

Harpsichordmaker wrote: 22 Jan 2021, 14:29 Time to produce fonts with different weights to adapt to the various line widths?
I mean, something like the "pro" text fonts: caption, regular, display and so on.
I didn’t know until today, but I discovered this is something Lilypond does, hence the fonts coming with LP come in different versions named Cadence11, Cadence14, Cadence20 and so on (I noticed this but didn’t understand why). The lower numbers have thicker strokes.
As OCTO recommended, this is done both with the different fonts and via software: on the smaller staves it automatically use the thicker fonts and draws thicker lines (stems, stafflines and so on).

I didn’t examine the fonts directly nor tested on LP since I use Sibelius, but I read all this on LP documentation here: https://lilypond.org/doc/v2.18/Documentation/essay.pdf (page 6-7, “Optical sizing”).

And BTW, on the same page is said that ledger lines should be thicker than the staff lines: is there a consensus on this among professionals here?


EDIT: of course this has already been discussed on Notat.io: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=50
Sorry.
However, I think it would be great if the most prominent engraving applications would imitate LP. Still, the anount of work in making eight versions of the font seems daunting.
benwiggy
Posts: 835
Joined: 11 Apr 2016, 19:42

Re: SCORE-based fonts

Post by benwiggy »

Coming back to this old thread. Nostalgia for SCORE glyphs seems over-rated, IMV. The C and cut C symbols are awful - very square. Tuplet numbers are not italic, and 'computery'. Ottava symbols are like 'normal' italic text.
Screenshot 11.png
Screenshot 11.png (85.12 KiB) Viewed 2768 times
The clefs, noteheads and accidentals are lovely, I'll grant you; though I don't think they have a monopoly on loveliness.
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